


Backwards Traveller

by seutedeern



Category: The Beatles
Genre: M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:38:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2440478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seutedeern/pseuds/seutedeern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New York in the late 70s feels like a world away from Europe almost two decades earlier, but when John settles down to write some more of his short 'fiction', he finds that, frankly, he misses Paris. This is 1961, in retrospective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While this one, too, had originally been posted at LJ, we'd like it here on AO3 for archive purposes as well.

_Come too quickly. Stop. Try again. Stop. Am waiting in Paris. Stop me if you’ve heard it. Stop. Stuff yourself with artichokes and live. Stop. Don’t stop. Stop._  
  
  
The Boulevard Saint-Germaine shone in all its springbok glory as he stepped lightly on some French loafers toward the waiting arms of Comrade Amie. “Tootie Frootie,” he gasped, inhaling the fragrance of her hairs in her nostrils. She greeted him warmly with a cold. “You haven’t changed une bit, you ould bastarde!” She frenched him round the neck.  
  
A flood of memories drowned him in a pool of sweat. “You taste bon, mon cher!” she exclamationed. “I can’t wait to get my fingures in your croutons!” said he. “OH you naughty man, you’ll never change,” she laughed, eyeing his pants.  
  
“For you, my dear,” he said, “I’d change address.” He gripped her by the pound and headed for the wrong bank.  
  
“There’s too much about underwear and sweat for my liking,” he thought to himself. “Love is never having to pull yourself together,” she said quite suddenly. “Love is never having to pull yourself off,” he replied in a lighter vein.  
  
  
***  
  
John put down the pencil with a small sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as he contemplated once more how to continue this story. Strewn across the entire surface of the table before him were photographs, all of them in black and white. He picked one up and smiled a little as he looked at the two young men in the picture: one of them just turned 21, the other two years younger still. If Yoko had been around, John would have never dared to take out the box of photographs that he had hidden in the back of his wardrobe. However, since she had gone out and he was on his own, he had taken the opportunity to revel in his most favourite memory -- his holiday with Paul in Paris.  
  
The picture of him and Paul, taken by some stranger they had politely asked, showed them in all their teddy-boy-ish glory, one day before Jürgen had cut off their hair and had given them the infamous moptops. Paul had his arm around John's shoulders and was beaming at the camera; John had his arm slung around Paul's middle, hand placed possessively on his hip while he grimaced at the camera. The longer John stared at the picture, the more he was convinced he could hear Paul's laughter faintly, feel his warm body pressed against his and how it shook with each drunk giggle. If he focused his concentration, John thought he could even smell the slightly chilly evening air, mixed with the familiar smell of Paul's cologne.  
  
With a dull ache in his chest, John put down the photograph and looked out of the window, releasing a deep, longing sigh.  
  
***  
  
They had meant to go all the way to Spain. That had been the original plan, anyway, when John had first approached Paul with his fistful of pound notes and ideas, ready to travel the world. Paul had been overwhelmed, John remembered, by the fact that John had come to him with this proposal and not Cynthia, or Stu. The look of shocked delight, of pride, in his eyes had warmed John from the inside out. Whether Paul knew it yet or not, he had already become John's favourite person, and, coming into such riches, it would never have occurred to him to share them with anyone but Paul.   
  
They made their way across the Channel easily enough. They'd hitchhiked plenty before; Paul especially was well practised in the art. But when they had come to Paris, with its gilt roofs and Gothic arches, a strange sensation had come over John, a sort of romantic inclination that made him loath to leave again. Spain was a worthy aim, certainly, but Paris...from the look in Paul's face, it was obvious that he had been equally affected, his expression rapt. But neither had known how to suggest to the other that onward travel was not a necessity, until they had come upon Jürgen Vollmer quite by accident in the street.   
  
They'd known he was in Paris, of course, but they'd made no arrangements, so it was quite a shock to see his familiar face in a public square. He looked like any other young artist, while John and Paul were still decked out like rockers, their leathers and ducktails incongruous amidst the Parisian youths with their soft hair and wide trousers. But Jürgen had approached them immediately, suggested they stay with him -- he had a spare mattress, he said, and though they weren't allowed up to his room during the night, they could wait and sneak up later, he was sure.   
  
"If you don't mind sharing?" Jürgen said. John glanced at Paul, caught his eyes. They had shared beds a thousand times. It was nothing, even if there was something in the air of this city that made John look at his friend a little differently, look at the world a little differently.   
  
"We don't mind," Paul said. "That's grand of you to offer -- thanks, Jürgen." He was speaking to Jürgen, but his eyes were still on John. John swallowed and nodded. A hundred pounds would only go so far.   
  
"Yeah, thanks a lot, son."  
  
***   
  
Too afraid of the wrath of his landlady, the patron of his student quarter and keeper of rules, Jürgen and the two boys waited until it was long past ten o'clock in the evening before they eventually decided to go to his, having spent the day out in Paris and at Jürgen's favourite places. All three of them were exhausted when they finally arrived. While John complained about his aching feet and the estimated amount of blisters he might have accrued, Paul shushed him every five seconds and barely managed to suppress his yawns. Jürgen only smiled at them in sympathy as he took out his keys and pressed a finger to his lips, reminding them to be quiet from now on.  
  
Going strictly by the book, Jürgen was not technically allowed overnight guests, of any sort. But they were friends and what kind of monster would he have been if he had denied them at least one night on a mattress? The fact that it was technically a single mattress didn't bother either of the boys.  
  
After all, they'd slept on single mattresses countless times before. John's own little bed at Mendips had accommodated both of them more times than he could count, Paul squidged up close into the cradle of John's body in order to stay on the mattress and John's arm wrapped tightly around Paul's waist out of pure necessity. Paul's bed at Forthlin Road was even smaller. Single mattresses did not present a problem. Being close to Paul wasn't something John had ever been upset by.   
  
They took the stairs carefully, quietly. Jürgen turned to warn them with his eyebrows to be quiet -- but when a door suddenly flew open lower down the stair, it seemed that the landlady had ears like a cat, despite their best efforts. A volley of yelling started up in French, and Paul clutched at John's sleeve, staring at him round-eyed.   
  
"Shit," Jürgen cursed, and then, as the madame appeared, donned his best disarming smile and began his best attempts to placate her. "Madame, je --"   
  
John and Paul, meanwhile, took their opportunity and fled, hurtling down the stairs in their noisy rocker boots and clutching at each other's sleeves as they sped out of the door and into the street again.   
  
Outside, they breathed in deeply, gulping for air. Paul leaned against the wall of the building. John sat down on the pavement.  
  
"Great. Just fucking great," he muttered, "What the fuck are we supposed to do now? I don't want to bloody sleep outside on the streets like a fucking homeless imbecile!"  
  
As John rambled on, Paul merely stared back at him with a blank expression. And then, suddenly, he broke out into a fit of hysterical giggles, at which the corners of John's mouth twitched as well. Moments later, he too was laughing.   
  
"Get up," Paul giggled, holding out a hand for John, "We'll find a place to stay, don't worry."  
  
John took Paul's offered hand, and as soon as he stood, he brushed off the dirt from his trousers. "Can't afford anything fancy anyway if we want to get anywhere on this dosh, love."  
  
"I know," Paul sighed.  
  
They set off. A moment later, John suddenly stopped in his tracks at the unmistakable sensation of a hand touching his behind. "Having fun there, Macca?" he asked, widening his eyes at his companion, who stared back at him with red cheeks.  
  
"Shut up, John, you've got dirt on your arse."  
  
"Oh, I'd have said the same." With a wink at Paul and a small shake of his head, he let Paul clean his trousers to his satisfaction.  
  
"I don't get why you have to wear white trousers, anyway," Paul said once they had continued walking, hitching up his backpack, "You see it easily when they get dirty. And since it's you, it's only a matter of time until they're all messed up."  
  
"They bring out my eyes," was all John retorted, his tone clearly indicative of his desire to curtail the conversation as he looked around, hoping to find a suitable hotel soon.  
  
After another half an hour of aimless walking around through deserted Paris streets, John was suddenly stopped by Paul's arm across his chest.  
  
"Oi, hold on!" Paul whispered.  
  
John only frowned at him. "What the fuck's wrong with you?!"  
  
"Are these prostitutes?" Paul nodded at the small group of women at the next street corner while a smile began to grow on his lips.  
  
"I don't know why you're so excited about it if they are," John pointed out. "This isn't Hamburg, you know. You'll probably actually have to pay them."   
  
Paul threw him a look. "With a face like this?"   
  
"It's Paris,  _darling_ ," John said, enunciating pointedly. "Tell you what, though -- why don't you go and work the other street corner for half an hour, make a few bob with that pretty mouth of yours? Might have enough left over to get a better hotel room that way, too."   
  
"Shut up, John," Paul said, but he was blushing furiously now. He'd been made that sort of offer more times than he wanted to remember when they were in Hamburg, and it had always made him uncomfortable, even while the others roared with laughter about it. "Come on, then, let's just go and find somewhere to kip."   
  
"We could always try some bars, see if we can pull a few birds for free?" John suggested, jabbing his thumb back the way they came.   
  
"In the dark, at this time of night, in a city we don't know?" Paul snorted. "Don't think so, son. We've just got to find the rough end of town and get somewhere cheap, just for now. We can move on tomorrow if we fancy it, but if you think a hundred quid isn't much for a holiday, I dread to think how you'd feel about whatever you'll have left if we have to sleep in the street. Paris is rife with pickpockets, you know."   
  
"Your dad tell you that?" John teased, but he began to move in the direction Paul indicated all the same, moving towards the narrower streets, the more closely crowded buildings. "It'll be all right. We'll find somewhere."   
  
The first reasonably priced place they found was in Montmartre, where the dome of the cathedral loomed large against the sky. In fact, it was so reasonably priced that Paul almost dreaded to see inside. When the room proved clean and the bed comfortable, he was more than a little pleasantly surprised.  
  
While Paul was busy scrutinising every corner of the room, still not believing that the possibility of meeting a relative of the Fiendish Thingy had been reduced down to zero, John unceremoniously dropped his bag on the floor before he slumped down onto the tiny bed. The noise of relief he made, face buried in the pillow, sounded to Paul like a dying animal, and when he turned around, he clicked his tongue, nudging John's foot with his.  
  
“Oi, get up, John.”  
  
“Leave me be,” John grumbled as he snuggled further into the pillow.  
  
Paul sighed in exasperation, rolling his eyes. There was no use in trying to get John moving when he was like that. Even though Paul wasn't sure for how long they would stay here in the end, he still unpacked his bag, not wanting his clothes to look more rumpled than they already were. Humming a tune softly to himself, he failed to notice that John had turned around in the meantime and was watching him through lazy eyes.  
  
“Such a good housewife,” he remarked after a while, causing Paul to nearly jump out of his skin in surprise.  
  
“I thought you were sleeping!” Paul frowned at him as he put away the rest of his clothes into the tiny wardrobe.  
  
“Well, you shouldn't think then, love.” John waggled his eyebrows with a grin. He looked over to his bag and made a small sound of disgust. Not even Brigitte Bardot could have made him unpack that thing just then. “Come to bed, Paul. It's late, and I want to sleep already.”  
  
Paul sighed heavily. God, he wanted to sleep too. But there was only the one bed in the room -- there wouldn't have been room for another -- and John was currently occupying at least eighty percent of its tiny surface, spreadeagled across the mattress like a starfish with all his clothes still on.   
  
"Well, shove over, then," Paul said, pushing at John's hip with one hand for emphasis. "And take your bloody shoes off at least. I intend to get under the covers and I can't do that with you pinning them down under your bloody great bulk. Gets cold in October, you know."   
  
"You just want to get me out of my clothes," John leered, but he shuffled onto his side anyway and kicked off his boots, then popped the button on his jeans and wriggled out of them, not without difficulty. Drainies clung like a second skin, and while you practically had to lie down to get them on, it wasn't exactly easy to get them off in that position.   
  
The thought skipped across Paul's mind that it'd probably be hell trying to drag them off someone for a fuck. Not that this was something he had to worry about, obviously. He cleared his throat, shook his head as if it could dispel the thought, and skinned out of his own jeans and boots, lifting the corner of the coverlet and squirming in the second John had moved over enough that it was possible.   
  
"Oh, that's better," John said, pressing his foot against Paul's calf. Paul hissed and slapped at John's arm, whole body jerking convulsively.   
  
"Bloody cold, you arsehole," he protested, and John sniggered. Sometimes John could be like this when they shared a bed, wriggling around just to be annoying and starting kicking matches under the blankets. Luckily, he didn't seem to have the heart for it tonight, and was quietening down, one arm going unconsciously around Paul's waist simply because there was nowhere else to put it.   
  
"God, this is actually a pretty comfortable bed," Paul had to admit. He closed his eyes. Yes, he could definitely get used to this.   
  
"Told you," John said. His voice was sleepy and the weight of his arm was familiar, reassuring over Paul's waist. Paul could feel himself dropping off.   
  
"Night, John," he started to say, but somewhere in the middle of it, the long days of hitchhiking caught up with him, and he fell asleep.   
  
***  
  
It was such a nice dream, really. A blonde and a brunette bird sitting on either side of him, one of them kissing his neck, the other kissing his lips, her mouth soft and pliant against his. Only the sound of those girls' voices startled him a bit, but he didn't mind as long as the kisses and caresses continued being so good. But then the blonde girl suddenly disappeared and the brunette one turned into a red head and somehow, her face looked all of a sudden so familiar to him.  
  
"Wake up, you tit."  
  
No, that voice certainly didn't fit the lovely girl. Still, Paul took a moment to look at her, and she started to look more and more like a friend...  
  
"I said wake up!"  
  
Paul yelped when the girl pinched his nose, hard, and he was faced with John who was only inches away from him, eyes filled with amusement.  
  
"Had a nice dream?" he asked, rolling off his friend and nodding at the obvious bulge in Paul's boxers.  
  
"Sod off," Paul coughed in embarrassment, burying his face in the pillow and turning his body in order to hide away his erection, earning a  _tsk_  from John.  
  
"If you need a wank, then do it now and do it quick. I'm hungry."  
  
"I hate you," Paul whined and pulled the blanket over his head.  
  
John only chuckled, smiling fondly down at Paul as he patted his side. "No, you don't."  
  
John was right, of course. It was just that -- well -- John was two years older than him, almost, and those two years meant something when it came to the whole embarrassing morning wood scenario. When they'd been sixteen and seventeen, waking up meant having your awkward stiffy pressed to your friend's thigh and just clearing your throat and blushing and getting on with it, because he'd have one too. But now John was all grown up and  _superior_ and could share a bed with Paul, apparently, without his body confusing the warm, angular boyish body with something soft and curvy that could be fucked. Which left Paul all awkward on his own, and that was far worse.   
  
"Are you not getting up?" John snapped his jeans against the curve of Paul's arse, preparatory to putting them back on.   
  
Paul groaned. "Can you give us a bit of privacy, John, just for a second?"   
  
"Nothing I've not seen before," John remarked airily, shuffling into his jeans. "Come 'ead, Paul, it'll go away. Just think, we've got the whole day to scout out the city, we can find you some action for that by this evening. Save it up, eh?"   
  
"Git," Paul muttered, blushing scarlet, but he hauled himself out of bed anyway and shuffled across the carpet half bent over, looking for his trousers and thinking hard about mouldy bread and wrinkly tits and other erection-killing horrors. It worked, sort of -- enough that he could actually pull his jeans up over his dick without doing himself an injury, anyway, although the way John was smirking at him as he shrugged on a clean shirt wasn't exactly helping. Paul was still young enough that anything warm and naked sort of got him going a bit when he was already mostly there.   
  
Oh, fuck, he had to stop  _thinking_  about it. He straightened his t-shirt with a flourish and reached for his jacket. "Right," he said, waving a hand in the general direction of the door, "Food, I think you said?" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beginning is an extract from Skywriting By Word of Mouth. We were also quite inspired by [this clip](http://amoralto.tumblr.com/post/44385799383/september-12th-1980-john-talks-to-playboy-writer), where John talks about being inspired by the romance of Paris.


	2. Chapter 2

It was easier said than done to find something to eat. With loudly grumbling stomachs they went through the streets, and somehow, they didn't see a single place anywhere that looked as if it served a proper breakfast. Only tiny cafés once in a while, and they all looked as if they only served minuscule cups of coffee at extortionate prices.  
  
John sighed in frustration as he dragged Paul from street to street, now more guided by his nose than his other senses.  
  
Suddenly, Paul piped up from behind, "I smell bread!", and John stopped in his tracks.  
  
Not far away was a shop with a sign that read 'Boulangerie et Pâtisserie' and, guided by the few bits of French that John  _could_  remember, he grinned at Paul and dragged by him the elbow over to the bakery. They both nearly drooled at the sight of freshly baked baguettes, croissants, cakes and other delicious things. Paul blushed deeply when all of a sudden his own stomach seemed to be emitting enough noise to fill the entire street.  
  
"Glad now that I dragged you out of bed for breakfast?" John sneered at him. Paul only sighed in defeat.  
  
Somehow - neither of them was quite sure  _how_  with their broken bits of shitty French - they managed to buy exactly the food they wanted, and were now sitting on the stairs close to the Sacré-Cœur basilica, enjoying the view of the city on this fairly sunny day.  
  
"God, it's beautiful, isn't it?" Paul's voice broke the silence after a long moment of nothing but quietude as they ate their long-sought-after breakfast, blinking into the growing sunlight.   
  
"Yeah." Ordinarily, John might have protested this sort of discussion, but something about this city was making him soft, its gilded edges making him want to admit to things like architectural beauty and a subtle edge of romance, overlaying everything like a curtain. "What shall we look at, do you think?" He cleared his throat. "I mean, if we're only going to be here a couple of days."  
  
"Bed's comfortable, isn't it?" Paul said shrewdly, reading John's tone too easily, and John shrugged, mulching the last of the pastry between his finger and thumb.   
  
"It's all right. But Christ, look at this place. There's too much to see in one day, Paul. The Eiffel Tower, Sacre-Coeur, Des Invalides, the Pont St. Michel..." John spread his hands expansively, apparently genuinely infected by the spirit of Paris and all its tourist sites. "Where shall we start?"   
  
"The Left Bank," Paul said decisively, after a moment, wiping his hands on his trousers and standing up. "Bet there are our kind of people there, eh?"   
  
"Bet there are," John said, enthused, standing too. "Come on, then. Let's go and see what they've got for an art scene in this place."  
  
It didn't take the two boys long to admit defeat after walking around aimlessly for an hour, hoping to find a tourist attraction by accident. And even though John had to be careful with his money, he still gave in to Paul's pleas to buy a tourist map. Once they had managed to find out where exactly they were, it didn't take them long to explore the area around Montmartre, both feeling motivated and adventurous enough to take the Metro in order to get to the Eiffel Tower. Once they had arrived, the sight of the building was simply breath-taking -- as reluctant as either of them might have been to admit the fact.   
  
As they walked underneath it, Paul suddenly stopped and got out his brother's camera. "John?" he called out and lifted the camera up to his face. When John turned around with a questioning look on his face, Paul took a picture, smiling when his companion rolled his eyes at him.  
  
"Come on, Macca, I'm getting hungry."  
  
"Again?" Paul arched his eyebrows at John as he put away the camera and quickly caught up with his friend's walking pace.  
  
"Well," John scoffed, "We've been out for how long? How little did we eat? I'm still growing, Paul, I need to eat or else I'll die."  
  
"The question is in which direction you'll grow," Paul smirked, earning a punch to the shoulder for that comment.  
  
"Shut up, or I'll send you home."  
  
"You would not," Paul said, shoving both hands into his pockets and lifting his head airily as they moved away from the monumental structure of the Tower, leaving it behind them.   
  
"How can you be so sure?" John demanded, nudging Paul hard with his elbow.   
  
"Why'd you ask me," Paul shot back, "if it wasn't 'cause you wanted to see Paris with me?"   
  
That remark earned him a sharp look from John. But it was true enough -- there were plenty of other people John might have asked: Cynthia, or Stuart. But here he was in Paris, spending his money on a holiday with Paul. Both of them knew that this meant  _something_.   
  
"Well," John said carefully, "I knew you'd appreciate it properly, all right? But don't give me any reason to think I made a bad choice, you hear me?"   
  
His gruffness was deliberate and overplayed, though, and Paul grinned at him, nudging him back so their elbows brushed. Ahead of them -- all around them -- other pairs of boys, with their strange long hair and their wide-bottomed trousers, were ambling down the boulevard, engaged in their own conversations but all doing the same thing, and there was something oddly companionable about it. Without pausing to think too much, Paul pulled a hand out of his pocket and hooked his arm through John's in imitation of the way the French lads were walking.   
  
John huffed a laugh. "Who d'you think you are, Sherlock Holmes?" But he didn't pull his arm away, and Paul allowed himself a moment of warm pride at that, the feeling of John's arm tucked firmly through his, demarcating the two of them as a pair.   
  
*  
  
In this fashion, they made their way back to the Left Bank. Jürgen, as well as the tourist map, had told them that this was the artistic centre of Paris, the sort of place where things were really going on. This included food: café followed café, with little chairs and tables spilling out onto the pavement.   
  
"All very Continental," John observed brightly. "Shall we just pick one?"   
  
"This'll do, won't it?" Paul said, indicating the nearest little café. When John didn't resist, he pulled him over towards it, and the two of them settled at one of the outer tables, right in the midst of things.   
  
While Paul looked around, observing their surroundings, John took the menu card and flicked listlessly through it, squinting his eyes at the tiny letters. After a few minutes, though, he gave up with a small frustrated sigh and handed Paul the card without saying another word.  
  
"Shall I?" Paul took the card with raised eyebrows, immediately understanding that John wasn't really able to read anything without his glasses. Shaking his head with a sigh, Paul read through the list, but try as he might, he couldn't understand a single word.  
  
"Well, read it out to me," John suggested and moved closer with his chair in order to look at the card as well, despite his poor vision.  
  
"You know I can't speak French," Paul replied, then added, "Why don't you get out your glasses?"  
  
"Are you crazy?" John hissed, "Have you seen those girls two tables away from us? What would they say if they saw me with my fucking four eyes?"  
  
Paul glanced over his shoulder, and John was right. Not far away from them were two girls, two remarkably pretty girls, not like those lasses up in Liverpool that he was used to, but proper French women. And he couldn't help himself, he was reminded of his dream with the two girls from which John had woken him.  
  
"Now let's see if we can find something edible on that card, and see if we're lucky." John smirked at Paul who mirrored his grin when he noticed that the two girls were looking over to them.  
  
"Well," Paul said, peering at the menu, "I presume 'le hamburger' is what it sounds like. What do you think?"   
  
"Does it come  _avec frites_?" John asked.   
  
The girls were glancing over at them. Paul forced his attention back to the menu. "What? Oh -- yep."   
  
"Sounds like a plan, then." John lifted a hand and clicked his fingers dramatically. "Garçon!"  
  
The waiter, apparently used to being addressed in this fashion, hurried over, and John gave the order in what sounded pretty impressive French, as far as Paul could tell.   
  
"What was that other thing you asked for?" Paul asked, when the waiter had flipped his notepad closed and hurried off.   
  
"Hmm?" Now it was John who was distracted by the girls, staring at them unsubtly with his chin propped on his hand. For a second, Paul actually felt mildly irritated, and then wondered why. Part of the attraction of Paris was the beautiful women, after all.   
  
"You asked for something else, I thought," he clarified. "At the end."  
  
"Oh, that." John grinned at Paul rather lasciviously and settled back in his chair. "Surprise for you, son. You'll see."   
  
The surprise turned out to be, to Paul's very great delight, milkshakes. Paul couldn't recall seeing anything that looked like 'milkshake' on the menu, but the two frothing glasses that came to the table in advance of the food told their own story.   
  
"Milkshakes?" Paul laughed, and John couldn't help himself but smile at Paul's joy when the waiter put down the two big glasses on their table. "How come?" he added when they were alone again and he took his glass, putting the straw between his plump lips and eyeing John curiously as he began sucking on his straw.  
  
John blinked, having momentarily forgotten what he wanted to say. "I... Er..." He scratched his slightly pink cheek and reached for his own milkshake, taking a shy sip from it before he mumbled, "I felt like it. Cravings, you know."  
  
Paul hummed happily in reply, licking his lips when he put down the glass. "Well, thanks a lot, Johnny... Let's hope the burgers are just as good."   
  
They ate in silence, devouring their meals quickly and only looked up every few minutes to smile at each other in mutual contentment. John almost dropped his burger, though, when Paul reached out with a napkin and wiped something off his cheek.  
  
"Ketchup," he clarified, still chewing with his mouth full.  
  
The giggle coming from the girls next to them only caused John to mumble something into his burger which sounded a lot like, "Thanks, mother."  
  
Paul went immediately pink. In his excitement over the milkshakes, and the general atmosphere of being here with John in this little artsy café on the bloody Parisian Left Bank, he had actually forgotten about the girls. He put his napkin down swiftly and crossed his hands in his lap.   
  
"Sorry."   
  
"Yeah, you should be." John rolled his eyes. "They probably think we're a pair of bloody great poofs now."   
  
"It was just ketchup," Paul said. He could feel the tips of his ears going pink. He reached for his milkshake more as a distraction than anything, sucking hard and very deliberately at the straw to avoid having to look up at John's face. And it really was a good milkshake, thick and sweet and tasting of actual proper banana, not that weird Banana Flavouring they sometimes put in things.   
  
"John?" he ventured, after a minute, lifting his head and wiping the back of his hand across his mouth where some of the creamy froth had escaped. John was looking at him oddly, fixedly. Paul waved a hand in front of John's face. " _John_."  
  
"Yes, I'm not that blind, I can see you," John said curtly, but Paul didn't miss the second's hesitation that betrayed his distraction. "Come on -- shall we go?"   
  
Paul frowned slightly. "But what about..." He nodded in the direction of the neighbouring table where the two girls were still sitting. Paul could feel their attention on the back of his neck.   
  
"Nah," John waved his hand dismissively, nose scrunched up. "I'm sure we'll find better than that." Not minding Paul's puzzled look, he took out his glasses from his jacket pocket and put them on.  
  
Frowning at John's sudden change of mind, Paul finished his milkshake. When John paid the bill, Paul let out a deep sigh as he glanced longingly at the girls a final time before John whacked the back of his head with the map and beckoned him to follow him.  
  
"Why the hurry?" Paul asked after a moment of silence as they walked down the street.  
  
John just merely shrugged. "Dunno. I'm tired. I don't feel like bloody chatting up anyone now who doesn't even understand a fucking thing I'm saying."  
  
"You never complained about that in Hamburg, though."  
  
"Give it a rest, Paul, okay?" John growled, "You'll get your bloody shag, don't worry."  
  
As for Paul, he only clicked his tongue in slight annoyance. He hated it when John got into one of his foul moods, and often enough, Paul couldn't even say why John was suddenly acting like that. Just like now.  
  
"Do you want to go back to our hotel, then?" he asked cautiously, hoping that John wouldn't snap at him again. "Take a nap?"  
  
"A nap?" John demanded, brow creasing irritably. "I know I'm going to be twenty-one, son, but you needn't condemn me to the scrap heap just yet, you know."   
  
Paul rolled his eyes. "You just seemed --"   
  
"What?" John threw him a look, and Paul shrugged.   
  
"Nothing. It's fine if you're not tired, but I want to get changed now anyway -- I've got milkshake on my sleeve somehow, look." He indicated a very tiny pale smear on his cuff, and John snorted through his nose.   
  
"Fine then," he conceded. "I suppose we can go back and then work out what we want to do next without having to faff around making a decision in the street."   
  
To Paul's relief, John then set a course for their hotel without comment. When they reached the room, he threw himself down onto the bed, and Paul took the opportunity to slip into the tiny bathroom. "Back in a sec," he called.   
  
"Aye, whatever." John waved a dismissive hand.   
  
When Paul emerged five minutes later, he was somehow not surprised at all to find John asleep. His shoes and jacket were in a little pile on the floor, and John was curled up on his side with a hand under his face, glasses still on and pushed askew by the position. When John got like this, there was often nothing that would fix it but a bit of a kip, and Paul knew John wasn't averse to sleeping in the afternoon, whatever he might say.   
  
After the excitement of the morning, Paul felt more than a little sleepy himself, he realised slowly. Part of it was probably just the suggestion of John lying there, face smooth in repose, but still. Carefully, Paul leaned over to take John's glasses off his nose and set them on the nightstand. Then, still moving cautiously, he shucked his jacket and boots and climbed gingerly onto the bed, curling his body in the same direction as John's, a couple of inches of air between John's back and Paul's front.   
  
"Just five minutes," Paul told himself, closing his eyes. 


	3. Chapter 3

Somehow, five minutes had turned into two and a half hours, and when Paul woke up, it was only because John was gently poking his cheek. Furrowing his brows in mild irritation, Paul grunted in reply and burrowed deeper into the pillow.   
  
"Wake up, Paul," he heard John saying softly as he poked his cheek once more. It wasn't until he opened his eyes that Paul realised how close John's face was or the entangled position they were lying in - Paul's arms around John's middle, one leg tucked between John's thighs. Apparently, John was feeling equally aware of the embarrassing snugness of their position, to judge by the light blush that stained his cheeks.  
  
"What time is it?" Paul asked, voice slightly raspy. He figured it was better not to mention their sleeping positions.  
  
John craned his neck as he reached over Paul for his watch and glasses on their bedside table. "Half past six," he said. "Christ, it got late quick, didn't it?"  
  
"Mh-hm," Paul agreed. He didn't know why he hadn't untangled himself from John, and surprisingly, it seemed as if John didn't want to give up on it quite yet either. Once he had put the watch back on the table, he slipped his arm underneath their shared blanket and put it around Paul.  
  
"I'm cold," he quickly clarified, and Paul smiled back at him.  
  
"It is a bit chilly," he agreed affably. He didn't really want to think too much about why he was so ready to agree if it meant they could stay in this warm cocoon a little longer, but he was.   
  
"That's what comes of being born in October, I suppose," John declared, yawning. His arm felt sturdy and comfortable around Paul's body, and Paul snuggled unconsciously closer into the embrace.  
  
"Bad timing on your part, really. Should've come out in August or something instead."   
  
"Wasn't ready yet, was I?" The rim of John's spectacles was digging slightly into Paul's cheek as he shifted, but Paul couldn't bring himself to complain. John might pull back then, and this was so unusually comfortable. "Greatness like this takes time, son."   
  
"Oh, aye." But Paul was smiling. "Does your greatness have any plans for the evening?"  
  
"Late enough to go out, now, isn't it?" John pointed out. "Could see what Montmartre has to offer by way of birds? I could do with a good shag, I can tell you that."   
  
John shifted slightly, his body slim and warm in Paul's arms, and Paul felt a mildly disturbing frisson of heat in his abdomen. "Yeah," he conceded quickly, "me as well. Definitely."   
  
"Mmm, I know," John said, "You were the one who spotted those whores first the other day, weren't you?"  
  
Paul could hear the teasing smile in John's voice, expecting Paul to groan or make some other sign of annoyance. But instead, Paul only grinned back, nudging John's foot with his. "Ah, come on, John, it's not as if you'd say no to them if they offered you a free shag. It's not my fault you've got the eyesight of a bleedin' mole; course I spotted them first."  
  
"If  _they_  offer  _me_  a free shag, you can be bloody sure there's something wrong about it, son." John scrunched up his nose, causing Paul to laugh softly. "They've probably got some nasty disease and want to drag you down as well so you can face living hell together."  
  
"Right, and then you'll live happily ever after, eh?"  
  
"Yeah. You, your wife and your lovely pet crabs."  
  
"Mmm, sounds like heaven." John was grinning, and Paul couldn't help but grin back. Only now Paul became aware of John's hand on his back, between his shoulder blades, and how it was drawing slow, lazy circles.  
  
Paul's eyes sought out John's face, his smile suddenly catching, holding oddly. John was looking back at him, smiling too, but the silence between them stretched on just a second too long, John's hand still moving slowly, and when Paul finally cleared his throat, he could hear the stupid bloody quiver in his voice. "Wish it wasn't so bloody cold out there, though."   
  
"Hardly want to get up, do you?" John tossed back affably, and Paul relaxed, relieved at the unconcern in John's voice, smoothing over the brief moment of awkwardness. "Shame we can't just order a couple of girls on the telephone, so we wouldn't have to get out of bed."  
  
"One day," Paul said firmly, "when we're famous. Then we'll never have to get out of bed just to get shagged again."   
  
"Pity today isn't that day." John wiggled his eyebrows, his cold fingers teasing at the hem of Paul's shirt, and Paul's eyes widened, both feet shooting out on instinct to kick John wherever was convenient.   
  
"Oy, don't you fucking --  _John_  --"   
  
"Ooh, he's after me precious treasures!" John bemoaned in his best camp falsetto, pouncing on Paul two-handed, tickling. Paul batted him off as best he could and slid out from under the covers into the chilly air of the bedroom, still bent half double and giggling.   
  
"You're a fucking menace, you know that?"   
  
"Got you out of bed, didn't it?" John smirked and tossed the covers back. "Right. Outside kit on, and let's find the nearest bar to warm up with a few beers first, what do you say?"   
  
"Sounds good," Paul said, hopping on one leg as he hauled his skintight drainies back on. "There's got to be somewhere nice around here."   
  
**  
  
As it turned out, there looked to be quite a lot of nice places, for a certain value of 'nice'. John and Paul, after all their months on the Reeperbahn, were used to more flashing lights and gaudiness; this place had a sort of artistic seediness that appealed to them, smoke drifting out of the darkened doors of bar after bar along the main street.   
  
"That one?" Paul nodded towards a dimly lit bar that looked more like a restaurant than anything else. But John only shrugged his shoulders, mumbling "Sure," and pushed Paul towards the entrance.   
  
When they were inside, John squinted his eyes while Paul looked around, trying to find a free table. He nudged John's side once he had spotted a corner and beckoned the other to follow him.  
  
With much reluctance, John took out his glasses when he was finally seated across from Paul next to a window. They had a good view of the street and were even able to spot the basilica in the distance.  
  
"S'nice," John ventured after a while, shrugging out of his jacket.  
  
"Yeah, it's marvellous, isn't it?" Paul smiled back at him before he looked out of the window again, eyes absent-mindedly tracking the various passers-by on the pavement outside.  
  
"Hopefully the French birds are just as grand." John waggled his eyebrows, earning a slight chuckle and a headshake from Paul.  
  
Not even five minutes passed before a waitress approached. Somehow, despite the woman's broken English and John's terrible French, they managed to order two beers, but just when John was about to make an attempt at flirting with her, something distracted the girl's attention -- a couple newly arrived at the entrance -- and she lifted her arm, ushering a colleague in their direction. And that was the moment when John's features slipped and Paul's eyes widened in surprise.  
  
As soon as the waitress left them alone, John leaned over to Paul and hissed, "Did you fucking see that? She's got a bleedin' jungle underneath her armpits!"  
  
"John, shut up!" But Paul was still craning his neck to follow the waitress as she walked off, the shadow beneath the pale curve of her arm drawing his eyes. "It's just -- French, I s'pose."   
  
"It's weird," John said, wrinkling his nose, although Paul couldn't help but notice that he was still watching the girl's arse as she retreated to the kitchen, the sway of her waist in her neat little frock.   
  
"Well...it's natural, isn't it?" Paul pointed out, playing devil's advocate, and there did seem something strangely fascinating about it here, in Paris, whereas in Liverpool it would just have seemed uncouth. Here, it made him uncomfortable, but not altogether in a bad way.   
  
"I hope the prozzies shave," John declared, unrelenting. "Birds should have hair between their legs and on their heads and that's all."   
  
"So nice of you to decide for them," Paul said. He wondered whether this was how most girls in France went about things, dark and untamed under their clothes. He wasn't sure whether the thought left him more excited or disgusted. It was some strange combination of the two. He himself had been embarrassed when he entered puberty and developed a veritable forest on his arms and legs, his dark hair and pale skin conspiring against him. John, meanwhile, looked almost hairless naked, slim and pale and --   
  
God, why was Paul thinking about this? John's smooth chest, the brown-gold hair on his arms and sparse on his thighs...these were not things Paul ought to have been contemplating in a fucking Parisian nightclub. Jungle under her arms or not, a girl was a girl.  
  
All the while, he had been staring at John as he continued to ramble on about women and armpit hair in general. It wasn't until John muttered, fag lit up and dangling from the corner of his mouth, "You might as well shag a bloke as a girl like that. I mean, what's the fuckin' point? If you want hairy armpits, you might as well fool around with someone with a dick."  
  
"You what?" Paul blinked, not trusting his ears.  
  
John gave him a funny look in return, exhaling the smoke slowly through his parted lips. "I said I'd rather shag a bloke than fuck a bird with a carpet underneath her arms." And then he added more hesitantly, "Wouldn't you?"  
  
"I... I..." Lost for words, Paul looked around, anywhere but at John, feeling the blood rushing up to his face. If only he hadn't thought of John's smooth, hairless skin. "Maybe," he said quietly after a while. Thankfully, John let the topic rest, seemingly, as he only looked at Paul pensively, eventually turning his head to look out of the window with a soft sigh.  
  
God, but Paul wished John hadn't said that. Before, his thoughts had been idle, in passing, but now John had voiced them and Paul found his own mind tripping back to the way John's mouth looked, soft and parted as he tracked the movements of people in and out of the restaurant, or the way he held his head, the line of his jaw. Things, in short, that he wouldn't have thought twice about before, but --   
  
Fuck John, anyway. Paul cleared his throat and kicked his foot against John's ankle. "Oy."   
  
"Mmm?" John shot a curious glance back Paul's way. "What was that for? Getting violent in your old age?"   
  
"No, I just --" Paul shook his head and looked over in the direction of the street. "I don't know if this is the right kind of place, you know?"   
  
"For what?" John raised an eyebrow. "Shaggable birds? Look over there, son." He nodded his head in the direction of the dance floor.   
  
In the centre of the restaurant, there was a little hollowed-out space where a few tables had been pushed aside to make room -- not much room, but enough for a few couples to dance in. In the middle of it, two very lovely girls were dancing with each other, all long bare legs and carefully demarcated brows. Their hands were dainty on each other's waists, and Paul could feel himself grinning as he looked back to John.   
  
"Look like they could do with some male company, don't they?" John remarked, smirking. "We should go over and be gentlemen, Paulie. Entertain them while we're waiting for our stuff to come."  
  
Relief crossed Paul's features and he followed suit when John got up, combing his hair back and fixing his clothes as they slowly made their way over to the girls. They briefly looked over, and when they returned Paul's hesitant smile, all thoughts of John's mouth and body he might have had previously flew out of the window. He was as straight as an arrow. So was John. These girls just proved it.  
  
"Bonjour, ladies," John grinned as he approached them, voice smooth and flirtatious. "Can I get you a drink?"  
  
The two girls looked back at him in slight confusion. "Nous ne parlons pas Anglais," one of them said, shrugging helplessly.  
  
John glanced at Paul as if to ask what to do now, and Paul, working on impulse, began to make wild gestures, indicating -- or so he hoped -- that he and John would very much like to buy the girls a drink and get to know them better. At first, it seemed to be working, since the two girls started to giggle -- probably because of the weird faces Paul pulled -- but when they linked hands and politely shook their heads, the two boys were dumbfounded.  
  
"Pourquoi?" John asked, trying hard not to sound too desperate. He understood, though, when one girl lifted the other's hand up to her mouth and kissed it. "Oh."  
  
"Oh?" The penny might have dropped for John, but Paul was still more than a little confused. "We c --"  
  
"Paul," John said pointedly, cutting him off as he took hold of Paul's elbow and steered him away from the two girls, "I don't think they've got much interest, son."   
  
"But why?" Paul furrowed his brow. "Is it our hair, d'you think? We have been getting some funny looks since we got here, you know."  
  
"Not because of our hair, you nit," John said, "although you might have a point there, but --" He sighed exasperatedly and gestured back towards the girls. "Look at them."   
  
Paul looked. The two girls had resumed dancing together, their arms around each other. For a moment, Paul remained unenlightened -- it was common enough to see girls dancing together in clubs, especially if there were more girls than lads in the population that night -- but then the taller girl's hand shifted tellingly down over the curve of the other's backside through her dress, and Paul looked away immediately, cheeks flushing. "Shit."   
  
"Got it now?" Back at their table now, John sat down and gestured for Paul to do the same.   
  
"They don't look like..." Paul trailed off, biting his lip. John shrugged.   
  
"Everyone in this bleedin' city's beautiful, far as I can see. Anyway it's not like we know many to compare. I suppose you get a lot in arty districts, don't you? Seems to run in artistic circles, you know...bein' queer."   
  
John had ducked his head and was fumbling for his cigarettes, but Paul couldn't help but think there was a little bit of discomfort in John's face now, the same way that there was in his own. They were artistic types, after all, weren't they? But they had seen a lot of it, a lot more than usual, in places where artists and musicians and whatnot hung out. Shadows of Paul's earlier thoughts crept back over him, and Paul shook them away. "Remember ol' Royston Ellis?" he ventured.   
  
John laughed shortly. "Yeah, full of shit, he was. Come on, son, never mind, eh?" He smoothed his hair back one-handed and cleared his throat. "We'll eat a bit, and knock a few pints back, and then try somewhere else."  
  
But somehow their beer didn't taste as good any more, and neither did their meal, which arrived shortly after they had got back to their table. The thoughts in Paul's head were simply too distracting. It didn't take him long before he lost his appetite and solely concentrated on drinking.  
  
"You don't want that any more?" John asked with his mouth full, pointing with his fork at Paul's half-eaten plate.  
  
"No, you can have it." With a sigh, Paul pushed his dish towards John who looked at him with a frown.  
  
"Everything okay?" The tone of his voice was hesitant, which made Paul look up at him.  
  
"Yeah, why?"  
  
"Dunno. You tell me. You seem a bit off, s'all..."  
  
"I'm fine," Paul insisted and emptied his beer. "Can I have another one?"  
  
John glanced from the empty beer glass to Paul's face, looking slightly sceptical. "What happened to trying somewhere else for talent?"   
  
Paul shrugged. "It's warm in here. Anyway, if we can have a couple more before we go, we'll be braver at pulling 'em, won't we?"   
  
"Like you ever have a problem with that," John snorted, but he flagged down the waitress dutifully. "Um. Deux bieres? Encore?"  
  
"I don't think that was right," Paul said, laughing a little. "The look on her face..."  
  
"Oh, shut up, it's better than your lousy French, isn't it, eh?" John sat back in his chair and drained the last of his own beer. "One more. Then we'll go."  
  
***  
  
Three beers later found them still at the same little table, although their attitudes were rather sloppier now, legs loosely wide and John's hands gesticulating wildly as he recounted some tale of idiocy in Hamburg, while Paul giggled to himself, chin in hand. John was funny when he was impassioned. Or perhaps it was just that he was funny when Paul was drunk. Either way, John seemed very funny right now, and Paul felt warm and buzzing from the beer and he suddenly loved John very much. John was a good friend. John was his  _best_  friend, and all at once it seemed important to tell him so.   
  
"We're best mates, aren't we, Johnny?" Paul broke in over whatever John was saying.   
  
John didn't seem terribly upset at being interrupted. He smiled back, eyes a bit dreamy behind his glasses. "Yeah, I reckon we are."   
  
"'nother beer?" It was getting a bit late to be trying to pick up lasses, and maybe...just maybe...they were getting a bit drunk, too, but Paul felt he wasn't all that bothered after all, now. Beer seemed a better idea.  
  
"Grand idea, Macca. I'll go and get us some."  
  
With a wink, John got up and disappeared in the small crowd of people in front of the bar. Paul watched him with a slightly dim-witted smile, head still propped up on his hand. Drowsiness was slowly kicking in and Paul began to wonder if he would be able to walk back to their hotel at all. Right now, he didn't feel like moving. John would probably have to drag him to bed, just like he had done so many times before.  
  
"Jesus," he cursed under his breath as he realised his own choice of words in his thoughts.  
  
 _He wouldn't drag you to bed. He'd only bring you home. Like a mate._  
  
From the corner of his eye, he noticed that the two girls from earlier had just left the bar and were outside on the street, where they paused, apparently to kiss each other goodnight. Maybe it was Paul's sick fascination and curiosity, maybe it was pure horror, but he watched them attentively all the while, the background noises and other people slowly fading out from his attention. An elbow nudging his shoulder snapped him back to reality.  
  
"Anything interesting out there?" John grinned down at him as he handed Paul his beer.  
  
Paul tore his eyes away guiltily. He wasn't sure why he should feel guilty -- he wasn't intruding on anything private, after all; or if it was private, then they shouldn't have been at it in the bloody street. But it  _looked_  very private, the way the girls' mouths lingered on each other, everything about it strange and yet oddly complementary. They made dirty postcards of stuff like that, Paul knew well enough that plenty of men were into it. He'd just never had the opportunity to judge this for himself before, and it made him feel...strange. Somehow, he didn't want John to see it; was afraid of what might happen if he did.   
  
Apparently, though, he was too late.   
  
"Bloody hell," John said, sounding rather awed as he set the beers down and peered out into the street.   
  
"I know," Paul started to say, but then John broke in: "Look, our mademoiselles have got boyfriends after all, eh?"   
  
Paul looked over to see what he was talking about -- and immediately wished he hadn't.   
  
Christ, it was even worse now. The girls had been joined by a couple of boys with the longish hair and wide trousers they'd seen a lot of in Paris. It would have been humiliating enough to see the boys begin kissing the girls, indicating that their disinterest in Paul and John had actually been to do with their out-of-place hair and clothes after all. But Paul would rather have seen that than this: the way the two boys leaned in easily towards each other, arms encircling each other's shoulders, mouths meeting. It wasn't a soft kiss, either, the friendly sort the French exchanged in greeting. It was a proper kiss, open-mouthed, and as Paul watched, he could see the shine of the lamplight on the wetness of their tongues, meeting between their lips. It was a lovers' kiss, two fucking  _lads_ , in the  _street_ , where anyone could see. As if they had no shame.   
  
The pit of Paul's stomach felt suddenly full of butterflies. He couldn't look at John. He turned quickly and picked up his beer instead, heart pounding.   
  
"Interesting nightlife around here," John commented, pulling his chair a little closer to Paul's. "Always snogging each other's faces off all over the shop, aren't they, French people?"   
  
"I...yeah," Paul said, feeling strained. John nodded and took a sip of his beer.   
  
"More over there, look." He pointed, and Paul was relieved to see a boy and a girl standing under a tree, engaged in a passionate tryst.   
  
"Seen worse in Hamburg," he pointed out, and John laughed.   
  
"Aye, but it's different, here. Romantic, if you know what I mean."   
  
And, stupid as it sounded, Paul did.  
  
"Christ, those two blokes are still going at it." John chuckled into his beer. Inching his chair closer, he put an arm around Paul and leaned back with a sigh. Paul only swallowed hard.  
  
"Well, if they like it..." Paul said quietly, trailing off with a wave of his hand.  
  
John hummed in reply, and somehow Paul could feel the vibration of it resonating through John's body to his own. He shifted a bit underneath John's arm, not quite sure whether to lean in further against his friend or to shrug him off. The decision was taken from Paul when John put his glass back on the table and leaned into Paul, getting into a more comfortable position. They stayed like this for quite a while, each of them lost in their own little world. Paul dimly registered that John's fingers were pressing gently into his bicep, then moved in small caresses -- just like when they had been in bed earlier. Without a word, he emptied his beer in a few gulps, wiped his mouth and allowed himself to lean into John completely. With a numb mind like this, practically paralysed, he tended to lose all inhibition. But John didn't mind. Neither did he drop some witty remark when Paul leaned his head onto John's shoulder and closed his eyes.  
  
"Just give me five minutes," he mumbled, voice almost sleepy, "just need to rest my eyes for a while."  
  
The soft chuckle in John's chest caused a warm, comforting feeling which spread throughout Paul's body. "You lightweight," John murmured in a teasing tone against the side of his head, "Always been one."  
  
"Shut up, John."  
  
Surprisingly, he did. The street was not quiet at this time of night, but there was something soothing about the low buzz of music and foreign chatter, and Paul found himself dozing off in the shelter of John's arm. When he blinked awake, John was half-laughing at him, giving him a quietly amused sidelong glance, but he hadn't moved. The motions of his chest as he breathed were still palpable against Paul's body, lulling, reassuring even while something about the closeness made Paul thrill even under the haze of drunkenness.  
  
"Do you need to be put to bed, princess?" John teased, nudging Paul with his shoulder.  
  
Paul blinked, feeling things out. He didn't feel so sleepy any more; his brief doze seemed to have taken the edge off the overwhelming pull towards unconsciousness. He turned his head, frowning slightly. "How long was I asleep?"  
  
"Just five minutes or so," John assured him. "Don't worry, mate, I had plenty to occupy me, didn't I?" He laughed and nodded towards the street. "City of Love, eh?"  
  
Paul turned his head and looked. There were more boys, now; two tall figures could be seen in the circle of light that spilled out beneath a nearby lamppost, the taller of the two steadying his companion's jaw as they kissed. The original couple had slipped away into the shadows of Montmartre, but when Paul forced his eyes to focus, he found he could detect more pairs, holding hands, leaning together against walls. Probably, John couldn't even see so far without his glasses. The discomfort that Paul had felt before seemed to have melted away, either because of tiredness or the beer or the hour, he couldn't say, but it looked...idyllic. Still odd, but in the way that all foreign cities are odd: strange, but in its place, right. John's breath was warm against the side of Paul's face. In the distance, the taller boy pulled his friend closer beneath the lamp post and Paul heard himself make a tiny sound, turned his face unconsciously.  
  
"John."  
  
It wasn't a kiss, not exactly. Just a rolling into each other, Paul's parted lips bumping against John's and John's clinging for a moment, parting again, closing. John's mouth was softer than Paul had expected -- if he'd expected anything.  
  
"Whoa, Paul." John's hands settled on Paul's shoulders, holding him off, and Paul felt a little wave of disappointment. John wasn't disgusted, Paul could tell as much. The resistance had not been immediate, it wasn't violent, Paul was still leaning against John's chest and he couldn't see, now, why they shouldn't do what everybody else was doing. Unthinking, he moved towards John again, but John stood them both up forcibly, hooked his arm around Paul's waist, and Paul found, now asked to stand on his feet, that he was drunker than he'd thought.  
  
"Shit," he murmured, swaying against John, "'m a bit fuckin' pissed."  
  
"Too right, son," John said, rolling his eyes. His face was a little pink. It was probably the beer. "Come on. Let's get you home."  
  
***  
  
John took his glasses off and set them down on the desk, smiling wryly to himself as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Paul had always been such a fucking lightweight, bloody shameful for a lad with such thoroughly Irish roots. Was he still? Before Paris, there'd usually been somebody else around when they'd got drunk together, Stu or George or one of the Petes or all of them at once. This night was the first time John had realised quite how... _affectionate_  Paul could get when even the slightest bit intoxicated.   
  
What had seemed very much endearing to John at first, had proven to be a problem for both Paul and him in later years. If John wasn't careful, and Paul had drunk more than usual on tour or at parties where all of the music business's fucking royalty had been around, Paul would sometimes try to sneak kisses whilst giggling like a teenage girl.  
  
With a shake of his head, John recalled one time, must have been during their first America tour (Cyn had already gone to bed), when Paul had crawled into John's lap and rested his head on his shoulder while the others stared at them in amusement. Only Brian had eyed them with an arched eyebrow, but John had saved the situation by putting on his granny voice and rocking Paul back and forth like a child.  
  
Would Paul still act that way, John wondered, with enough alcohol in him? He was all grown up now, after all, with fifty million children and 500 albums -- or was it the other way round? Not that John was ever likely to get Paul into a situation like that ever again. The more time passed, the more uncomfortably aware he was that this was his own fault.   
  
Sighing, he pushed his chair back and tried to put the thought of it out of his mind. He'd felt Paul's drunken caresses for the last time. There was no sense in dwelling on it. 


	4. Chapter 4

If it hadn't been for John, Paul would never have been able to get back to their hotel room, especially not without any bruises. Walking home proved to be a bigger challenge than either boy would have expected. John, shoulders braced against the weight of Paul leaning heavily upon him, practically carried him most of the way. Whenever they passed a couple in the street in the act of holding hands or sneaking a kiss, Paul loudly declared that John was his. John wasn't sure what he might have meant at that point. Eventually, he hissed at Paul to shut up, but Paul only looked back at him with his big doe eyes and a stupid grin.  
  
"Isn't it true, Johnny? You're mine... And I'm yours, yeah?"  
  
"Best mates, yes," John emphasised with a grumble, tightening his hold around Paul's waist when he felt his grasp beginning to slip. "Come on, son, get a grip. We're almost there."  
  
"M'trying," Paul whined. The rest of the way back, he relentlessly continued to tell John that they were best friends, always would be; how much John meant to Paul. Comments like "Fuck Stuart Cuntcliffe," peppered the conversation at regular intervals.   
  
John only sighed in relief when he finally could open the door to their hotel room and put Paul to bed -- which proved to be a terrible struggle. Paul was hardly able to stand upright, flopping down onto the mattress almost immediately and leaving John to the task of yanking Paul's tight drainies off him, an operation that always felt not unlike peeling a banana. After Paul had, with an effort, skinned out of his jumper and t-shirt, John handed him his pyjamas, grousing, "This is worse than babysitting Jacqui and Julia."  
  
"You love them," Paul protested loudly, flapping a hand about on the mattress.   
  
It took all the strength John had not to roll his eyes. "Yes, Paul. Now, come on, love, get these on." Taking the pyjama shirt from Paul's limp hands, John began stuffing Paul's arms into it as if he were dressing a doll. Paul certainly seemed to have no intention of actually putting the thing on himself.   
  
"You love  _me_ ," Paul declared, rather triumphantly, and beamed at John.   
  
"Jesus Christ," John muttered through his teeth. Paul could be an impossible drunk, all smiles and overloud voice, but he'd never been quite so openly demonstrative in the past. Reminding himself that Paul didn't know what he was doing, could hardly tell his arse from his elbow at the moment and wasn't to be blamed, John said, "That's right, mate. Now pull these up, c'mon." He slapped Paul's thigh and Paul giggled, but obediently hauled his pyjama bottoms up another couple of inches from where John had decorously left them just above his knees. When they were clinging precariously to his hipbones, Paul flopped onto his side abruptly on the bed and closed his eyes, as if to go immediately to sleep.   
  
"Oh, no you don't." John was more than a little drunk himself, but Paul was fucking  _out of it_. If he let Paul pass out on top of the covers like this, they'd both end up kipping in the cold all night and then Paul would complain in the morning, not to mention they'd probably have frozen their bollocks off by then. "Here." John dragged the blankets out from underneath Paul's body, manhandled him further towards one side of the mattress and then covered him with the bedclothes. "Now go to sleep."   
  
"Sleep  _with_  me," Paul protested, although his eyes were closed already.   
  
"Aye, in a second," John reassured him, as he got into his own pyjamas. "Move your fat arse."   
  
Paul hummed against the pillow and, when John slipped under the covers to bracket the curve of Paul's body, Paul's hand groped blindly behind himself for John's arm, pulling it around himself. When Paul's fingers slipped between John's, John told himself it was just the drink, and there was no point in arguing when they'd be asleep in a few minutes anyway. The fact that it also felt quite nice was just a product of the fact that John was quite drunk, too.   
  
"G'night, Paul," he said against Paul's shoulder, as he closed his eyes.   
  
"Mmm," Paul said, or something like it. His fingers twitched in John's, squeezing, and then were still for a moment. But just as John could feel himself on the edge of sleep, Paul withdrew his hand and squirmed around, fussing about as if to get comfortable. John sighed. Paul always did faff around a lot before he decided he was comfortable enough to sleep -- John had hoped the alcohol might have put paid to that, but apparently not.   
  
"Better?" John muttered pointedly, when Paul had finally settled with his hand under his cheek and his face almost touching John's on the narrow pillow.   
  
"Yeah," Paul said. It was too dark to see his face properly, but John could feel him smiling all the same; could just make out the white line of his teeth. "Goodnight, Johnny."   
  
And then Paul leaned in. Not quickly, certainly not too fast for John to have moved away, but as Paul's mouth sought his again, John felt immobilised, breath catching in his throat. Paul's mouth gave softly against John's own, scratch of stubble just detectable above the curve of his lip, and John couldn't help but part his lips unconsciously, letting Paul closer. Paul made a pleased sound in his throat, kissed John again -- and again. Then his tongue brushed against John's, wet and tentative and John felt a shudder rip through him from head to toe. He yanked his mouth back, blinking, but Paul seemed not to have noticed his alarm.   
  
"Sleep tight," Paul said, and closed his eyes.   
  
John's mind, as best as it could what with all the beer it was fighting against, was whirling. Paul was --  _this_  was -- they'd been drunk together on plenty of occasions and never ended up like this. Of course, Paris was a weird place, a sort of catalyst, John didn't doubt, but the fact remained that his body was warm all over and his blood felt thick and slow, pounding all over his body, because of Paul. Paul, his best mate; Paul, some other lad. John swallowed.   
  
"Paul?" he ventured, cautiously.   
  
But Paul, it seemed, was already asleep, and part of John, as he closed his eyes, was almost relieved not to have to confront this now; relieved that there would be time to reconsider. But as he drifted off, John found himself wondering how much of tonight Paul would even remember -- and worse, how much John would.   
  
***  
  
Exhaling slowly, John frowned a little as he woke up, feeling rays of sunshine tickle his eyelashes. When he opened his eyes, he found himself face to face with Paul, who was blinking sleepily back at him, rubbing one of his eyes with the heel of his hand.  
  
"Mornin'..." Paul mumbled, attempting a smile.  
  
John found himself smiling back before the memories of last night suddenly came crushing down on him and something strange overcame him. He inched a bit away from Paul, as well as he could within the limited space of their bed, while Paul watched him with a bemused smile, eyebrows arched. That look only made John recoil even more, a shiver running down his spine, and he sat up quickly. Looking anywhere but at Paul, fingers combing through his hair, he cleared his throat. "Did you sleep well?"  
  
"I -- uh...Y-yeah, I suppose so. Didn't really notice anything..." John could see the very moment at which Paul realised what he had done last night. It would have been almost comical, the way his eyes widened and the way his mouth shaped a little pink 'o', and John would have laughed at him under different circumstances, but right now, they both fell into a brief awkward silence, not looking at each other until Paul coughed a little.  
  
"Did you sleep well, too?" he asked cautiously, scratching his arm as he shot John a shy glance.  
  
"Yeah, slept like a baby." John smiled back, that kind of tight-lipped smile that only showed all too well that he didn't feel like smiling at all. With an exaggerated, "All right then!" he got up from the bed and quickly collected his clothes, feeling Paul's intent look burning into his neck. "I'll go to the bathroom first, okay?"  
  
Paul nodded at him, still sitting in bed. "Okay," he replied quietly, and John could have sworn that he breathed a sigh of relief when he realised they weren't going to talk about what had happened the night before.  
  
When John emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later -- hair combed, body hastily scrubbed, clothes on -- he felt more himself, more composed, as if the act of tidying himself up had had some effect on the state of his nerves as well. It was all going wonderfully -- he was just congratulating himself on having moved beyond the strange awkward feeling -- until he spotted Paul, perched on the end of the bed in his trousers and boots, shirt clutched in his two hands and his torso bare.   
  
The awkwardness of the situation was clearly not lost on Paul. His little smile was strained as he said, "My turn, then?" and got up, moving past John so quickly he almost blurred as he disappeared into the bathroom and slammed the door.   
  
Shaken, John sat down hard on the bed Paul had just vacated, running his hands through his hair. Christ, he needed to get a hold of himself. It wasn't as if he and Paul hadn't seen each other in every state of undress there was; it wasn't as if it should  _matter_ , for fuck's sake, just because they'd drunkenly had their tongues in each other's mouths. For a  _second_. They were still mates, still two lads, and there was nothing about Paul's naked body to draw John's interest any road. They just had to get back to normal, and stop thinking about this, and move the hell on.   
  
In this spirit, John was rather short with Paul when he came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, hair damp and t-shirt slightly askew at the neck.   
  
"We told Jürgen we'd meet him, remember?" he said, picking up his coat and tossing Paul's across the room for its owner to catch. "So we'd best be going."


	5. Chapter 5

Jürgen had all kinds of ideas about Paris as a tourist centre and what-not. John hadn't been that interested before, but now it seemed important to have distractions, so he smiled brightly when they found their friend, and happily let him lead them to places like St. Chapelle and the imposing structure of the Louvre. As long as Jürgen was there, John and Paul didn't quite have to look at each other, and it seemed to make things easier. Or so John hoped.   
  
Three more days passed like this -- occasional meet-ups with Jürgen whenever he was free, and avoiding each other as best as they could without being impolite while they were alone. Their conversation mainly revolved around their friends and Cyn and Dot at home. Paul even happily chatted away about Stuart and the likelihood that they would see him again next time they were in Hamburg, and John voluntarily talked about Paul's father, despite the Serious Concerns he'd expressed at the idea of his precious boy going away on hols with That Lennon.   
  
"Do you think he's already wondering whether you've got yourself killed?" John asked with a grin, taking a sip from his Coke. They were eating lunch at a small bistro, sitting outside and enjoying the late autumn sun.  
  
"Probably, yeah," Paul grinned around his straw. "But you know he'll blame you for anything bad that happens to me here, don't you?"  
  
"Aye, but it can't be much worse than some of the things I've been blamed for in the past. I think he's still cross with me about the fags."  
  
"Mhm," Paul hummed, sucking in some more of the milkshake through the straw. "I'll have to watch out with you, Johnny, or you'll wear me down completely."  
  
John blinked back at him, momentarily quietened, and, mentally replaying the comment in his mind, Paul heard the unintended suggestiveness in it. They both began to blush lightly at his words and quickly ducked their heads. Suddenly, their meals were so much more interesting to look at.  
  
"It's this city that's wearing us down," John muttered, after a pause that felt aeons long. "Everybody in their flappy trousers and their floppy hair -- can't get a bird to so much as look at you if you're not dressed like a starving artist."   
  
"Well," Paul said, seizing upon the topic of conversation gratefully, "I think it's the fashion to look like you live in a garret, anyway."   
  
"Maybe we should look into it," John suggested, draining the last of his Coke. "Ask someone where they got all their gear, y'know. Sometimes you've got to blend in to get anywhere, eh?"   
  
And so, it was a mission. The game was on. After the waitress had taken their money and their empty plates, the two boys set off down the boulevard in search of wherever the fashionable accoutrements came from. They didn't have to walk long before they came upon a young man with his hair cut much like Jürgen's, soft and flat across his forehead, and whose trousers were so wide as to look almost like a skirt from behind.   
  
"Oy," John said, and then cleared his throat, remembering himself. "Er...excusez-moi? Le pantalon?" He gesticulated vaguely in the air, drawing wide shapes around his own legs with his hands. "Ou avez-vous l'acheté?"  
  
The French boy looked as if he was trying not to laugh -- at John's execrable accent, Paul could only presume -- but he seemed to get the gist of what was being asked of him, for he pointed, and returned, half in English, "There is a little  _magasin_  -- down there. Voila!"   
  
"You heard the man," John said, and together they took off in the direction indicated.   
  
The trousers themselves, once they were in the vicinity, did not take much finding. A little more gesticulating on John's part, and they had a pair each in a brown paper bag which John clutched under his arm like a prized possession.   
  
"Come on," he said, suppressing a grin, "let's go back to the hotel and try them on. You can tell me if I look like an  _artiste_  yet."  
  
***  
  
Their initial excitement over their new clothes wore off slightly once they were in their hotel room again and wanted to try their trousers on. Fleeing to the bathroom seemed excessive, given the various states of undress they had seen each other in before, but now everything felt heavy and awkward.   
  
While Paul stood in one corner of the room, his back to John, John stood at the other end. Both were well aware of how idiotically they were behaving but this was still better than staring at one another while they were half-naked. Things were already awkward and strained enough.  
  
Eventually, Paul turned around with a frustrated sigh. "John, they're fucking awful."  
  
John snorted a laugh; Paul smiled. And quite unexpectedly, the elephant in the room seemed to have disappeared. For the time being, at least.  
  
"I know, right?" John laughed as he turned around, fly still undone. "They're all flappy at the hems."  
  
"And too tight around your arse," Paul added with a frown as he looked down at himself and tried to pull a little at the cloth on his backside, without much luck. "Christ, I don't know how men here can even walk in them without falling over every six feet."  
  
As Paul turned around to show what he was talking about, John cleared his throat uncomfortably. The thought that came to mind was  _Well, I like it_ , which didn't seem as if it would go down well. Instead he grunted in reply, nodding solemnly.  
  
"At least you can still pull them off, Paul," he said instead. "Look at me, though. My legs look like fucking hams."  
  
Paul clicked his tongue, shaking his head. "I didn't know you were so vain, John." He walked over to his friend and knelt down in front of him, pulling a bit at the ankles of John's trousers and making little considering sounds every now and then. "Your legs look fine," he said eventually, looking up at John. "But we need to alter these bloody trouser legs before we can go out in them."  
  
"Er, how? We haven't really got the dosh to get them altered, love."  
  
"Well..." With a grunt, Paul got up and ran a hand through his hair. "I could change them. We only need to buy a sewing kit and I'll do it."  
  
"What would I be without you, eh?" John rolled his eyes with a smirk and zipped himself up.  
  
"A hopeless case," Paul smiled back and took their jackets, pressing John's against his chest before he walked out of their room.  
  
**  
  
  
It was unfortunate that 'sewing kit' was not among the words of French John remembered from school, but on the other hand, it was quite entertaining to watch Paul attempt to convey the idea by means of crude mime in the first likely-looking shop they came across. They had found somewhere that looked like it might stock such things only a couple of streets from the hotel, but still, John felt awkward, soft, in his wide-legged trousers. He was glad to see that Paul was apparently better at miming than he was at French, the shop assistant making a triumphal sound of understanding and scurrying away to fetch the desired item.   
  
"Thank God for that," John muttered as they strode out of the shop, purchase completed. "I feel like I'm wearing a fuckin' skirt, here. We must look like right sissies."  
  
"Everyone's wearing them here," Paul reminded him, although he conceded, "They do swish though, don't they? Getting all tangled up between my feet when I move."  
  
"Good thing I've got a little housewife with me to fix 'em up, then, isn't it?" John elbowed Paul in the side, feeling, for a moment, the old casual camaraderie, the ability to touch Paul whenever he wanted to and not want to touch him in ways he shouldn't.   
  
Then Paul smiled back, and John felt himself wanting stupidly to put an arm around his waist, and the moment was gone. Jesus fucking Christ.  
  
In the hotel room, Paul took charge, directing John down onto the narrow little bed as he opened the sewing kit. "Sit."  
  
"Here?"  
  
Paul shrugged. "Nowhere else, is there? Just -- hang on --" Paul perched on the edge of the bed and patted his thigh. "Put your foot in my lap and I'll pin up this leg, then we can swap over and I'll do the other one."  
  
"Have you ever done this before?" John asked with one eyebrow arched as he put his foot into Paul's lap, who ran a fingertip along the seam and took a closer look at it.  
  
"Not a whole job like this," Paul confessed with a little smile, "But there's always a first time, isn't there?"  
  
With a grunt and a roll of his eyes, John decided to keep quiet and let Paul do his work. He didn't want him to mess it up, after all.  
  
The minutes ticked away and John watched with vague fascination how quick and nimble Paul's fingers were, how he effortlessly cut open the seam and took measure so that the trouser leg was now fitting snugly against John's leg without being too tight. He was more than careful not to accidentally hurt John with the scissors or the needles. When it was time for Paul to take care of the second leg, he moved from the bed down onto the floor, and continued his work. Soon enough it was time for John to take off his trousers so Paul could continue fixing them properly. At that moment, John could have sworn that Paul's cheeks were slightly pink, but Paul had turned his head away, making it difficult to be sure. It took Paul quite a while to finish up the trousers, but Paul didn't seem annoyed at having to do it. John, for his part, didn't particularly mind watching.   
  
When it was time to try them on again, Paul knelt before John and tugged a bit at the newly stitched hem of each trouser leg, looking up at John with questioning eyes. "Not too tight?"  
  
John sat down on the bed, testing, and when the seams held, Paul beamed at him, proud of his work. All John had wanted to say at that moment was _thank you_. But something in Paul's relieved expression had him leaning forward instead, made him cup his friends face.  
  
"Johnny?" Paul asked, voice weak and eyebrows knit in worry.  
  
But John only leaned in and pressed his lips gently to Paul's forehead. The other tensed up instantly, not daring to move.  
  
"John...?" Paul repeated, this time even lower and it was the tone of Paul's voice that snapped John back into reality.  
  
He quickly jerked away from the other boy and stared at him with wide eyes, his shock at his own actions written all over his face.  
  
"Are you okay...?" Gently, Paul placed a hand upon John's knee as he leaned in towards him, and John couldn't stand looking into those big eyes that watched him so attentively.  
  
Christ, when had he come over so bloody queer all of a sudden? He'd sat with Paul in countless tiny rooms, on countless tiny beds, even, and never had this sort of a reaction to Paul's hand on him, Paul's soft face and softer mouth. Fuck, and John knew just how soft it really was, now, didn't he? That was the problem; that was what was behind all this. Paul had bloody kissed him, pissed out of his head, and now it was little more than a blur to Paul, but to John it was becoming uncomfortably more with every day that passed.   
  
"Leave it, Paul." He didn't mean to be curt, but his heart felt thunderous in his chest as he jerked away from Paul's hand and stood. The look of hurt on Paul's face made John's chest twist, but that was all the more bloody reason, wasn't it -- to get away? He couldn't stay here with Paul, not when every fibre of his body was still straining towards him, his lips tingling where they'd touched Paul's skin, craving more of him.   
  
Fucking hell. John had to get out now, clear his head before this got any more out of control. They'd just been cooped up, that was all, and John had been over thinking and all he needed --   
  
"John, what the hell's the matter?" Paul was getting up too, now, reaching for John's arm, and that was it; John needed to be alone to figure this out and he wasn't going to get that, apparently, as long as he was in the hotel with Paul.   
  
He took a step back, made a grab for his jacket. "Lay off me, Macca, all right?"   
  
He made for the door. Behind him, Paul's voice became more strident, confused: "What the -- where are you going?"   
  
He hated leaving Paul like this; wasn't Paul's fault after all...except for the parts that were his fault, except for that bleeding kiss that fucked him up in the first place. If John had to go and walk this out of his system, well, Paul could bloody well just sit and stew about what was going on.   
  
"Out," John said firmly, "just -- out, all right?" And he slammed the door as he left. 


	6. Chapter 6

Paul kept staring at the door for a few more seconds, not able to believe what had just happened. He swallowed hard, flexed the muscles in his hands and walked over to the bed. Sitting down on it, he breathed out slowly, staring into space.  
  
 _What on earth just happened?_  
  
He knew he needed to look for something else to do, needed to distract himself or he would end up worrying too much. And so he began to fix his own trousers while he tried hard not to think about the way John's face had been twisted in anger and confusion as he left the room, how easily he had pushed Paul away even though it had been  _him_  who had made advances in the first place. Paul still couldn't wrap his mind around that either. Of course he knew what had been going on between them before, and he was aware of how much it seemed to strain their relationship and how it made them act like bloody idiots around each other. But still...  
  
When he was done -- this time it had taken him twice as long to sew the trousers -- it was slowly getting dark outside. Paul couldn't help but wonder what John was doing now. It was difficult not to panic about it, especially since they were in a foreign city, all on their own. His fingernails suffered a lot from the nervous nibbling, though. What Paul hated the most was that he couldn't even leave the hotel room and take a walk himself and get some fresh air. John had basically forced him to stay here, since he had the keys. The later it got, the hungrier he got as well. Curse that bloody Lennon for leaving him all alone in a hotel room in a foreign city. Paul could feel himself getting more and more upset about this whole thing. If only he had something to do.  
  
In the end, he got into his pyjamas, stomach roaring loudly, and slid into his bed.  
  
*  
  
Meanwhile, John was on his way back to their hotel. In the hours that he had been out, he had been running around aimlessly through Montmartre and had mostly spent his time sitting on a bench and watching people pass him by. It was always easier to turn off your mind when there were people there to distract you. And while he had been sitting there, smoking cigarette after cigarette, he had replayed over and over again what had happened between himself and Paul in their room. He knew it had been his fault this time. He knew he had acted like a right arse and that Paul didn't deserve any of his anger. But at that moment, John had been too scared of what he might have turned into ever since Paul had given him those drunken kisses a few days ago.  
  
He wasn't supposed to think of Paul  _in that way_ , was he?  
  
There was one incident, though, that had made John feel better about himself and his possible-queer-feelings for his best mate: a quick kiss spotted between two blokes right in front of John in the park. It had made him feel less lonely with his thoughts and new feelings, and when the sun had begun to set, John had at last noticed how late it actually was. Feeling terribly guilty for having left Paul all alone in their hotel room, he quickly bought some sandwiches for them to eat -- he was starving and poor Paul surely was, too -- and set about hurrying back to their room.  
  
If John was honest with himself, he was really fucking scared about what might happen now. He was worried that Paul would be royally pissed off at him and would want to go back home as soon as possible. Or even worse -- he had left already and was now lost in this city and probably already dead, lying in some corner where nobody would really notice him.  
  
Taking a deep breath, he turned the doorknob of their room, testing if it was locked. Once he stepped inside, he squinted his eyes at the darkness.  
  
"Paul..?" he asked, cautious, and closed the door silently.  
  
"Leave me alone," came the quiet reply, voice muffled either by a pillow or the blanket.  
  
John cleared his throat as he walked to their bed, feeling all of a sudden sheepish, stupid. "I, uh, I brought something to eat," he said as he fumbled with the handles of the plastic bag. "I figured you might be hungry..."  
  
He could see the body beneath the blanket moving around until Paul's head appeared and he sat up, reaching for the lamp to switch it on. John flinched at the light but nothing prepared him for the hardened look on Paul's face, hurt visible in his eyes nevertheless.  
  
"Have you figured your shit out, John? Or are you going to fuck off again now that you've been kind enough to bring me something to eat, huh?"  
  
"I'm sorry, Paul," was John's meek reply. He sat down on the edge of their bed, reached into the bag and handed Paul his sandwich. Paul took it without another comment. "I just... I don't know what happened earlier, okay? I know I'm a stupid fuck but I needed some time to think, and I..."  
  
"And I what?"  
  
John only shrugged. "I don't know." He gave Paul a small crooked smile, and Paul breathed out deeply, making it obvious how exasperated he was.  
  
But instead of telling John how much of a stupid bastard he was, Paul moved a bit, scooted closer to John and took his hand.  
  
"Is this okay?" he asked quietly, to which John nodded. Then Paul linked their fingers, giving John's hand a small squeeze. "What about this?"   
  
John nodded again.  
  
It was more than okay. John couldn't have explained the huge sense of relief that washed through him as Paul's slim hand closed around his own, but it was massive, intense. He wasn't sure what he'd expected, but it hadn't been this; he hadn't dared to anticipate anything less than an argument. But now, sitting on the bed with Paul, their hands interlinked, John could feel that fluttering sensation rising in his chest again, the same mad butterflies he'd felt earlier when he'd pressed his silly kiss to Paul's forehead. Only now, it didn't seem so bad, if Paul was happy to sit this way too, a grateful little smile curving his pink mouth.   
  
Yeah, it was still a fucking sissy thing to do, or it would have been in Liverpool. John was under no illusions about that. But this was Paris, and Paul was obviously as curiously twisted up inside as John was. A problem shared was a problem halved. A problem ignored, or dismissed, stopped being a problem at all -- at least, for the time being.   
  
They ate their sandwiches in a companionable silence, one-handed. Daft, really; it was bloody stupid to try and eat a sandwich this size with one hand, but anything else would have meant relinquishing his hold on Paul, and John wasn't ready to do that yet. Not when it might be hard to go back to after. When the sandwiches were gone, John set the paper from his down on the floor and looked at Paul. Their fingers were still interlaced, Paul's a little slimmer than John's, but just as long. Their hands, John noticed dully, locked together perfectly.   
  
"Paul," John said, softly, when the moment began to feel as if it was dragging on too long in silence. "I --"  
  
"Sshh." Paul cut him off. Gently, he began to disentangle his hand from John's, and on impulse, John squeezed it tighter, but Paul only laughed and lifted his other hand, taking hold of John's shoulder. "It's all right, I'm not going anywhere in my pyjamas, am I? Just...c'mere."   
  
His free hand found the back of John's neck above his collar. His fingers were cool and gentle and John felt a shiver skip down his spine in the aftermath of the touch. Then Paul was tugging, just slightly, and John realised what he wanted. He leaned in towards him blindly, letting his arms settle easily around Paul's waist. Paul's head fitted neatly between John's jaw and his shoulder, and John let himself close his eyes, inhaling the scent of Paul's hair.   
  
"Feels nice," John breathed out after a while. Paul hummed in reply, his voice resonating throughout John's body, making him feel warm from inside out.  
  
Of course they had hugged before but never like this. The Usual Hug that John and Paul would share was always a quick embrace, a pat on the back, and that was it. This hug now, though, was something else. Paul had never stuffed his face like that into the crook of John's neck before, and John had never even dreamed of burying his nose in Paul's dark hair and greedily inhaling his scent. The Usual Hug lasted two seconds; this hug couldn't last long enough.  
  
Soon enough John began to run his hand along Paul's spine, down and up again, stroking him in a hesitant, shy fashion that was completely unfamiliar. Paul released a soft sigh against his neck, his body relaxing instantly into the touch. After a while, he nuzzled his nose along John's neck.  
  
"That nice, too?" he asked with a thick voice. Thank God John wasn't the only one with a lump in his throat.  
  
"Yeah," he replied and began to run his nose along the soft skin behind Paul's ear. "Very nice."  
  
When Paul pulled away, John felt a sting of disappointment. Hugging was good.  _Touching_  was good.  
  
"Do you want to go out, love?" It was a reluctant question and silently he prayed that Paul would say no.  
  
Paul only shook his head with a widening smile.  
  
"Are you all right?" John ventured.  
  
"Now I am." And that was all Paul needed to say, really, to make John feel like the luckiest bastard ever -- a feeling that only grew when Paul lay down again and pulled John gently with him. "This is much better," he whispered. "Turn the lights off, please."  
  
Obediently, John did as he was told and once he turned back to his friend, Paul pulled the blanket over both of them. Instantly, they moved closer towards one another until their noses were nearly touching. Neither of them was sure how far they could go, were allowed to go. Slowly, John slid an arm around Paul's middle, eyebrows raised as if to ask "Can I?" Paul smiled with a nod and put his arm around John as well, his fingertips tracing small circles between his shoulder blades.  
  
The only sound they were able to hear was their own shallow breathing and the few noises that came from the street below them. Apparently it was a busy night out there, and under different circumstances, both boys would have certainly gone out. But now that they were so close to each other with a completely new perspective on their relationship, neither of them was too anxious to indulge in the late night activities that this Parisian quarter offered them.  
  
Of course the tension between them became unbearable at some point; wondering who would make the first step was wasted time. Eventually, John had had enough and he moved his hand on Paul's back up to cup his cheek, breathing out, "All right?", asking for permission. When Paul whispered back "All right", smiling, John leaned in and Paul met him half-way. Their lips touched lightly, shyly, the way children might kiss, as if afraid of the possible consequences if it went beyond chasteness.   
  
For a long moment, chaste was all it was. John's thumb shifted on Paul's cheek, tracing the soft curve of it, but their lips barely moved against each other. It was so quiet in the little room that John could hear Paul's breathing, shallow and uncertain through his nose. Gently, John mouthed at the swell of Paul's lower lip, their lips still barely parted, and when he felt an answering pressure -- the slight motion of Paul's mouth responding to his -- it was as if his whole body had been doused in sudden heat, and he found himself wondering, dazedly, how this almost-kiss with Paul could affect him in a way that some full-on fucks with girls had never done.   
  
It was crazy, but at this moment, it felt as if that was okay. John  _felt_  crazy, so it was fitting.   
  
The other night, it had been more than this, Paul's tongue wet and soft as it flickered over John's, but they had been drunk then, high on liquid courage. Now they were only Paul and John, two boys in a bed together, and John could feel the thrill of fear in Paul, the anticipation in the taut line of his spine. Carefully, John ran his palm down the centre of Paul's back, gentling him.   
  
"Paul," he murmured, and Paul's mouth opened half-consciously, gasping in a breath.   
  
"Ssshhh," John said, with a certainty he did not feel, and pressed his mouth more firmly to Paul's.   
  
This time, it wasn't quite so innocent a kiss. John tilted his head, angling Paul's with the hand on his cheek so their mouths slanted together, and Paul shuddered in John's arms as their lips met, sealed together. It was still dry, careful, slow, but they were moving against each other now, John nudging Paul's lips apart over and over, Paul pushing back. Eventually, it became a sort of dance, a courtship; John's lips teasing at Paul's just to feel the sweet give of them as Paul teased back. Then -- John couldn't have said how, exactly -- but somewhere along the line, Paul's hand skittered across the nape of John's neck and John moaned reflexively, the brief brush of fingertips sending a hot rush all through him, prickling across the whole surface of his skin.   
  
That did it. Helplessly, pointlessly, Paul moaned back, a thready whimper of a thing, and then they were kissing harder, not  _faster_  but more deeply, mouths opening wider against each other until the tip of John's tongue caught the wet inside of Paul's lower lip, then returned to it consciously when Paul shivered. Tentatively, Paul's tongue ventured to trace the edge of John's, toying with the tip of it, and it felt so good it was ridiculous, completely out of all proportion. Abruptly, John realised he was hard, so fucking hard; even as he drew back to suck, firmly now, at the perfect bow of Paul's upper lip, he knew this had to go one way or the other: forward or back.   
  
His hand hovered at Paul's waist, but he wasn't, in this moment, brave enough. Carefully, he slowed the kiss, turning it stroke by stroke back into something gentle, closed-mouthed, innocent. Paul seemed to recognise John's intentions, for he did not protest when John eventually stilled, until the two of them were only lying together on the pillow, foreheads touching, lips still brushing, cheeks flushed.   
  
"Night," John said hoarsely, although his dick was a ripe ache between his legs and he wanted nothing more than to roll over and rut against the mattress, just to get it out. Fuck, but he needed Paul -- no -- needed a bloody  _wank_ , that was all.   
  
From the flush on Paul's cheeks and the wideness of his eyes in the dark, Paul looked to be in a similar state, but it was harder to say these things to your mate than it should have been, John reckoned, even after all the times they'd tossed off together in bedrooms, in grotty little rooms in Hamburg clubs. Then, it had always been about girls. This time...this time, it wouldn't be.   
  
"Night, John," Paul said, and closed his eyes.   
  
It was a very long time before John managed to fall asleep. 


	7. Chapter 7

Waking up the next morning was far more pleasant than it had been for the past few days. They came to consciousness slowly, Paul's head tucked underneath John's chin, his nose pressed against John's collarbone, their legs were entangled and their arms wrapped around one another. The air in their room was slightly chilly thanks to the poor heating system, but the upside of the chill was how much better it made it to wake up in the arms of someone else, warm and cosy.  
  
"Mornin', Macca," John whispered when he felt Paul stirring in his arms. Paul made a small noise when he, too, woke up and he pressed his face further into John's chest, deliberately ignoring the fact that it was time to wake up. "Come on now, you don't want to waste the entire day in bed, do you?" John prodded, tickling Paul's side lightly. Paul's body began to shake and squirm like jelly.  
  
"Okay, okay, stop it," he sighed and lifted up his face to look at John, all sleepy smiles and pillow creases on his cheek.  
  
John stopped tickling, but the smile on his face didn't go anywhere. He felt as if he'd been taken over by the warm, pleased feeling that coursed through him like sunshine in his blood at the sight of Paul tucked up against him, his dark hair wild and tousled from sleep. John couldn't resist reaching out to touch it, smoothing it back into place, and that only made Paul smile a little more, closing his eyes and arching into the touch like a cat.   
  
"If this is supposed to make me want to get up," Paul murmured, without opening his eyes, "it's not working." He pushed his head against John's palm and John laughed, stroking down to the base of Paul's skull where the hair was soft and thick.   
  
"I suppose," John said, pretending to think hard about it, "we could always stay here for a little bit. Just until it warms up a bit."   
  
"That might be a good idea." Paul opened his eyes, laid his head back down on the pillow. They were very close, now, noses touching. Paul's eyes were green-brown-hazel-blue, some fascinating confusion of colours, and his lashes were far longer than any lad had a right to. John couldn't help but lean in to kiss him.   
  
Obviously, this was what Paul had been waiting for, to judge by the way he parted his lips immediately to receive John, hand creeping up into John's hair. Spurred on by Paul's eagerness, John let his tongue trace the seam of Paul's lips, slipping inside, and Paul whimpered, fingers clenching against the back of John's neck.   
  
In the new light of morning, it got deep quickly, Paul's jaw going wide against John's as their tongues met, then slipped away from each other to trace the insides of mouths, the shapes of teeth. John's arms tightened reflexively around Paul and it seemed that the heat of the night before had not gone away entirely, but only quieted for a while. Now, as Paul sucked on his tongue, John could feel himself aching again, hips trembling with the need to move. He wanted -- God, he wanted to push forward, rut against Paul; wanted to drag Paul against him and grind their dicks together until they came. The image of it came to John so strongly that its clarity shocked him, even while it made his breath catch against Paul's mouth. He didn't want to frighten Paul, didn't want to push too far. Didn't know what was allowed, but this...this wasn't enough.   
  
He broke away, panting. "Fuck."  
  
Paul's breathy laugh came as a relief. "Yeah." His mouth was red from kissing, eyes hot and dark.   
  
"You realise," John said, "I haven't got off since we fucking got here, so you want to be careful snogging me like that, Macca. Just to warn you."  
  
Paul hesitated, breath catching. John didn't miss the brief flicker of his eyes downward, the way his breath seemed to come faster afterwards. "You all worked up, love?"   
  
"Don't fuckin' pretend you're not." This wasn't entirely foreign territory to them. They'd had similar conversations. It was just that they had never been prompted, in the past, by the heat of each other's mouths. "You want to, um." John swallowed. "Let's have a toss off, or we'll not be able to go anywhere without getting arrested."   
  
Paul bit his lip. John's heart was pounding in his throat, but Paul was breathing hard too, cheeks flushing, so it was all right. Then his hand slipped down under the blankets, and John could hardly bite back a groan.   
  
"Better shove the blankets off, then," Paul said, low, "or we might get stuff on 'em."  
  
"Trousers too," John said, feeling suddenly brave, and Paul nodded jerkily.   
  
"Trousers too."   
  
They kicked the blankets onto the floor, fumbled out of their trousers, and then Paul's thumbs slipped into the waistband of his undershorts and John forgot how to breathe. He could see the ridge of Paul's dick straining at the cotton, and though he'd seen it before, he'd never really  _looked_  like this; never watched as Paul peeled his underwear down to free his cock. John caught his breath, forced his eyes away and wriggled out of his own underwear, suddenly hot all over. Sweat prickled between his shoulder blades.   
  
"Fuck," he muttered, "I really,  _really_  need a fucking wank."   
  
Laughing breathlessly, Paul nudged his nose against John's. "I can tell," he said, panting softly.  
  
From the corner of his eye, John could see the motion of Paul's hand, a flick of his wrist, and with a groan he began to work on himself, hips stuttering forward. He cursed underneath his breath when he noticed that he was watching Paul and hoped in earnest that his friend hadn't noticed. When Paul whimpered slightly in his throat, though, John couldn't help but glance over, taking in the sight of Paul with his lower lip caught between his teeth, eyes upon John's hand as it slowly stroked his dick.  
  
"John, please," Paul urged, voice cracking as he inched closer to John, "Please..."  
  
John looked back at him, and for the first time, he was taken aback by the look on his friend's face, how he stared at him with those bedroom eyes that usually only girls got to see, his parted lips, flushed cheeks. How could he refuse? With his free hand, John took Paul's chin and guided him in for a kiss which was immediately of that urgent, desperate kind that had both boys wanting to crawl into each other’s skin in order to get closer. Their hands began stroking faster, hips moved of their own accord and with the increase in friction, their hands began to graze more and more frequently against each other, sparking in John's dick with every brush of skin.  
  
They weren't going to last long, that much was obvious. John couldn't remember the last time he'd gone this long without at least tossing himself off, which would have made him frustrated enough, but doing it like this -- after all their looks and touches, the hot, confusing kisses -- John felt himself abruptly on the edge, breathless with it. The kiss got sloppier with every motion of their hands, mouths sliding slack and frantic against each other, tongues rubbing, until they were barely kissing any more at all. Paul bit at John's mouth, knuckles bumping against John's wrist, and John moaned, shoved his tongue against Paul's until they were licking at each other. It was messy and wet and with a girl, John might have been embarrassed by his eagerness, but Paul wasn't a girl. Paul was just Paul, smelling of clean laundry and leather and boy-sweat and John felt almost drunk with it.   
  
He didn't know what made him open his eyes. It was as if somehow, suddenly, he just had to  _see_. Paul's hand was jostling against his now with every stroke, the bed shifting as they rocked their hips, and when John looked down, he couldn't hold back a curse, heat ripping through him.   
  
"Fuck, Paul," he panted into Paul's open mouth. "Jesus Christ."   
  
They were so fucking close. John bit his lip, chest aching and thighs trembling with need, just watching the way Paul's hand sped up and down the sticky shaft of his dick, the head of it shiny with precome. Paul's knuckles were skimming John's with every stroke, now, and the crowns of their dicks leaned almost together, close enough that John couldn't resist bucking his hips slightly, just to see. Just to  _feel_.   
  
When they brushed, it was like an electric shock. Paul's cock was hot and fine-skinned and strange where it nudged against John's, and John was suddenly seized by the desire to see how it might feel to rub them together, wank them together in one hand, but it was too late for that now. Paul was moaning, body shivering, hand moving faster and faster. John had heard him sound like that often enough before, but now it was for him; now, when Paul shuddered, legs snapping straight, it hit John like a freight train: Paul was about to come all over him, all over his hand and his stomach and his fucking _dick_ , and he was going to do it because of John.   
  
When Paul's orgasm hit him, it was better, so much better than John could have imagined. The way Paul melted against his mouth, the strokes of his tongue getting slower but firmer as if he was trying to hold on to something. And when John felt Paul's hot, sticky release covering his fingers and tip of his own cock, he couldn't hold it back much longer anyway, even if he had wanted to. Paul sucked the groan from John's lips when he began to come in long pulses. He felt dizzy, barely registering how Paul hooked a leg around his waist, had shifted closer. As John struggled for breath, Paul kissed him; continued to kiss him until he had calmed down, their lips touching softly, innocently yet again. Without hesitation, John wrapped his arms around Paul and shoved a leg between Paul's thighs, squeezed him in his arms.  
  
"I don't want to move," he murmured against Paul's mouth, feeling the perfect lips curve up into a smile.  
  
"Me neither," Paul sighed and broke the kiss to look at John. "But we have to, eventually. Scrub up and get something to eat, yeah?" When John didn't look convinced at all, Paul added, brushing his nose against John's, "Maybe Jürgen is free, too, and he could show us around a bit more. I don't feel like I've seen everything yet."  
  
"I bet you haven't," John retorted with a lecherous smirk which had Paul blushing.  
  
"Shut up," he said, slipping out of the bed. The t-shirt he'd slept in pooled around his waist, soft against his thighs, but there was still something rather obscene about him like that, his long legs bare and the curve of his arse just visible below the hem of the shirt when he stood. John swallowed.   
  
"Fine," he said, getting up too. After a second's hesitation, he grabbed the hem of his shirt and hauled it off over his head before he had time to get worried about it. They couldn't get washed with their bloody clothes on, even if it felt suddenly embarrassing (and thrilling, and dangerous) to be naked around each other. Tossing the shirt aside, he moved towards the little bathroom that adjoined their sleeping quarters. "Come on, then, slowcoach."   
  
Somewhere between the bed and the bathroom, Paul got rid of his shirt too, and John felt himself blushing as he caught sight of the other boy out of the corner of his eye, the long curves and angles of him. In his peripheral vision, John could just see the shape of Paul's dick soft between his thighs and the drying smears of come across his abdomen, and the realisation that this was what he was looking at made him red to the tips of his ears. Earlier, they'd been unashamedly panting into each other's mouths as they stroked themselves off, and now just being next to Paul, naked, was too much. It didn't make any sense, but John forced himself to keep his eyes front as he reached for the soap, made a lather on his sponge and started scrubbing himself.  
  
"Are we not --" Paul's voice was shy. "Are we not going to get in the bath, then?"   
  
The image rolled into John's mind unbidden: the two of them, limbs entangled under the water, kissing and kissing and kissing. With a shiver, he pushed it away, feeling his satiated cock give a valiant little twitch at the thought.   
  
"Nah," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "Want to be quick, don't we, or it'll be past lunchtime by the time we get outside." He threw Paul a grin as he scrubbed the sponge over his belly and down between his legs, keeping his movements as brusque and businesslike as possible. "Won't it?"   
  
"Eh?" Paul blinked, and it occurred to John suddenly, with a fresh rush of shame and warmth, that Paul had been staring fixedly at John's body as if it was something interesting, lost in it. Now he was as pink as John was, his movements nervous as he reached past John for his own sponge. When he stretched, every muscle in his body stretched too in a way that John had never paused to notice before. The curve of his arse was too inviting to ignore, embarrassment or not.   
  
"Oy, I know I'm distracting, but..." Grabbing a towel from the rail, he snapped it briefly at Paul's backside and laughed at Paul's yelp. But the boyish gesture seemed to dispel the tension at least a little, as Paul darted a hand out immediately to deliver a stinging slap to John's hip.   
  
"I'll show you distracting, Lennon," he said menacingly.   
  
"If that was supposed to be a threat..." John said pointedly, feeling daring as he raised his eyebrows at Paul and grinned.   
  
"Fuck you," Paul muttered, turning his attentions to his own sticky stomach and thighs, the sponge now fully lathered up.  
  
John bit back the (probably unwise) response that was on the tip of his tongue and said, instead, "Come on, finish up. I want to see things while the sun's out."   
  
The place on his hip -- his thigh, really -- where Paul had smacked him felt raised and hot, tingling. John did his best to ignore it as he moved back out into the main room and began tugging on his clothes. Everything about Paul felt suddenly, hotly arousing, even things that had no right to be. He was going mad. And it felt  _brilliant_. 


	8. Chapter 8

Outside, it wasn't particularly sunny as John had hoped but he found that he didn't mind in the slightest. He felt warm and happy and if he wanted to know why, he only needed to look to his left -- where Paul was walking right next to him, occasionally bumping his shoulder against John's with a bright smile that made up for the lack of sun. They easily found a place to eat at before they set off to find Jürgen and see if he was free. And while they were eating, they hardly noticed the looks they received from the girls that happened to pass them or who sat at other tables. Eventually, though, Paul looked up from his meal, chewing slowly as his eyes focused in on something beyond John.  
  
"Oy, do you feel something burn into your skull?" he asked, tossing John a secretive little grin before he took another forkful and shoved it into his mouth.  
  
"Huh?" John only looked at him in confusion, eyebrows knit. "What are you talking about, son?"  
  
"Those girls over there," Paul said and pointed with his fork at the table behind John. "They're watching us. Or, well, they're staring at  _you_ , Johnny."  
  
"Are you serious?"  
  
Paul nodded, chewing in silence.  
  
"Are they good-looking?"  
  
"Well, better than what you'd find home in Liverpool, definitely." The corners of Paul's mouth curved up into a half-hearted smile but he lowered his head again and poked listlessly at his salad with his fork.  
  
John watched him as he wondered what that sudden change in Paul's behaviour was all about, chewing slowly. "Well," he sniffed with a shrug of his shoulders, "I don't really care. I'm not here to pick up birds, am I?"  
  
When Paul glanced up at him, he leaned a bit forward with a smile that one would probably describe as flirtatious. "Birds are ten a penny, Macca, but holidays with my best mate? Who knows when the next time will be that we get to go to a city like this without anybody else, hm?"  
  
Paul didn't say anything but from the way he quickly took his glass and tried to hide his smile, John could tell that the other was pleased with his answer.  
  
It wasn't -- and John had been quite careful to make sure of this -- that he wasn't still  _attracted_  to birds. Of course, the leggy French girls with their long hair and neat waists still made him tingle when he turned his attention to them deliberately. He was still a red-blooded young man, after all. It was just that the urgency had gone out of it, somehow; it was a case of deliberately directing himself to look at them, just to check he still wanted to. Girls were great, their curves and pretty faces were lovely, but they were familiar, ordinary. Paul's flirtatious glances, on the other hand, and the giddy feeling he got at the thought of even so much as holding his hand - these things were new, even if Paul himself was familiar.   
  
It wasn't, John thought to himself as they finished their meals and ambled off companionably down the boulevard, just a case of the thrill of the unknown, either. Paul  _wasn't_  unknown, and that was part of the joy of it. John could be himself with Paul, not have to worry about anything except what felt good, what might be fun. Part of that was probably only due to the permissiveness of this city, its romantic architecture and general air of openness towards physical affection. But most of it was just them, just him and Paul. It was only that it had taken this trip to show them how deep their connection really was.  
  
***  
  
Notre Dame was imposing, all Gothic turrets against the skyline, and dark inside, as if the windows hadn't been cleaned in some time. John had just wrinkled up his nose to complain about it when he felt Paul slip a hand slyly into his, squeezing gently.   
  
"Should you be doing that," John asked, nudging him, "in a House of God, eh?"   
  
Paul laughed softly. "Nobody's gonna see, are they? It's pitch black in here."   
  
"When lightning hits the steeple, we'll know who to blame, son," John said wryly, but he squeezed Paul's hand back all the same, and they wandered around the rest of the cathedral together, fingers interlaced. It was out of tourist season, and the place was mainly deserted, but for the statues and crypts and tattered flags from foreign battlefields, all of which made the building rather more interesting to the two boys than it might otherwise have been. But the feeling of Paul's hand so easily tangled with his -- in public, no less -- was more interesting to John than any battle standard once carried by Napoleon. He wanted all sorts of things he couldn't put names to, but that was all right. There was no rush. They could figure everything out together.   
  
***  
  
Later that day, John and Paul met up with Jürgen again. It was at a small cosy-looking outdoor café in the Latin quarter of Paris and it all looked a bit different from cheerfully down-at-heel Montmartre. Just a tiny bit nicer, here in the university quarter where there were students everywhere, theatres, book shops and other establishments that guaranteed a good time for young people.  
  
After they had ordered their drinks and lunch, Jürgen told them about his studies in Paris and how different it all was from Germany, especially his life as a student.  
  
"You can't imagine how free I feel in this city!" he grinned at the two boys, looking like the happiest man on earth.  
  
"Oh, to me it's quite obvious, isn't it, Paul?" John waggled his eyebrows in Paul's direction, feeling warmly gratified when Paul laughed and nodded.  
  
"And, have you already managed to pick up a girl?" Paul asked as he reached for his drink and took a sip from it.  
  
Jürgen's grin only widened. "Oh I have."  
  
"And? What's she like?"  
  
"You'll see yourself. In fact she'll join us. She should be here soon."  
  
When John and Paul only looked at each other with their eyebrows raised, seemingly impressed, Jürgen laughed.  
  
Only ten minutes later, a beautiful curvy woman with long black hair approached them, her hips swaying from side to side in an almost hypnotising way. The look on Jürgen's face was unmistakably pride in its purest form. Her name was Alice, and as nice as she looked and as nice her name sounded -- she was anything but nice. Alice was a bitch, actually. As soon as she had arrived at their table, her face immediately fell, turning into a somewhat disgusted grimace as she scrutinised John and Paul. It was the sort of look one might turn on an unexpected invasion of insects into an otherwise pristine room. The way she yelled at Jürgen after he had introduced her to John and Paul only confirmed their suspicions about her.  
  
John leaned in towards Paul, shielding his mouth as he whispered into Paul's ear, "What a cunt."   
  
Gesticulating wildly, Alice put on a show which amused the two boys to no end while Jürgen got more and more distraught.  
  
"C'est fini!" yelled Alice at last and tossed her long hair before she turned around on her heel and teetered away.  
  
A moment of silence passed until Paul ventured, "Did she just break up with you?"  
  
"I don't know. I guess I'll find out soon," Jürgen sighed and rubbed his neck.  
  
John and Paul shared a pitying look which was John's cue to light up the mood. "Oy, Jürgen. Do you think you can get us a fancy hair cut like yours?"  
  
While Jürgen looked up at John with a slight smile, Paul only stared at him in shock.  
  
"Are you kidding?" Paul demanded.   
  
John shrugged. "Nobody's going for the rocker look around here, are they? Apparently we look dead common."   
  
"Oh, I like you boys as rockers," Jürgen interjected, and Paul nodded vehemently.   
  
"Thank you! Anyway, we  _are_  dead common. What's wrong with that?"   
  
John shrugged. "I'm just saying, Paul. Got to move with the times, haven't you? Anyway, looks like it might be a lot less fuss, that haircut." He indicated the soft fringe of hair Jürgen wore across his forehead, devoid of all the greases and creams that went into keeping their rocker quiffs intact. "Yours has always been too soft to stand up properly as it is. Your hair, I mean," John added slyly, with a grin.   
  
Paul went immediately pink, his hands going to his hair. " _John_ ," he said, in a cautionary tone, but John could see there was more than embarrassment behind his blush. He laughed.   
  
"Come on, love, it'll be good. We'll go home to Liddypool and start a new trend, what do you say?"   
  
"What if it looks shit?" Paul demanded.   
  
John shrugged. "You can blame it on me. And anyway, if it looks shit we can always just comb it up again with a shitload of Brylcreem, can't we?"   
  
Paul sighed in defeat. "Jürgen?"   
  
"I have never cut hair before," Jürgen confessed, "but I have seen it done. If you are sure about this, boys..."  
  
"We're sure," John cut in firmly, and Jürgen smiled.   
  
"Then I will give it a try."   
  
***   
  
After their last experience at Jürgen's boarding house, they were particularly careful to be quiet as they went up the stairs. Once in the room, Jürgen got out a wooden chair and an old towel, which he brandished like a bullfighter waving a red flag. "Who goes first?"   
  
"John," Paul said immediately, throwing John a suspicious look.   
  
John rolled his eyes and sat down in the chair without protest, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it aside. "Was my idea, wasn't it? I don't mind." He reached up to touch his hair, fingers coming into contact with the grease that held it in place, and frowned. "Should I duck it under the sink first?"   
  
"That would probably be helpful," Jürgen said with a little smile.   
  
Five minutes and a blast of cold water later, John was back in the chair again, his hair rinsed and towelled dry. Jürgen approached with a pair of scissors and a comb, and at the flash of silver, John felt, for a second, his first flush of anxiety about this idea.   
  
"Be careful, eh?"   
  
"Don't worry," Jürgen told him, "you will still have two whole ears when I finish." He set the comb against John's scalp and began gently combing the damp hair into place. "I promise."   
  
 _Snip, snip, snip._  
  
Paul watched John with big eyes while Jürgen tried to cut his hair as best he could. John smiled at Paul expectantly. "You look scared, Macca."  
  
"I'm just trying to imagine what it'll look like when it's done," Paul mumbled, eyebrows creased in mild worry.  
  
"Of course it'll look good, Paul. Stop acting like a bird." John winked at him before he closed his eyes when Jürgen started to cut his fringe. Paul only nibbled nervously on his thumb, hating the fact that John had dragged him into something again that might end horribly for both of them.  
  
However, when Jürgen was finished, Paul was pleasantly surprised.  
  
"How do I look?" John asked, running his fingers through his new hair cut over and over again. His hair looked so soft. Paul wanted to reach out and touch it.  
  
"Great," he said, walking over to his friend, reaching out and running his fingertips lightly across John's hair, "It looks good, Johnny."  
  
"Told you so," was John's smug reply. "Let me get up so I can take a look at it in the bathroom, love."  
  
Paul obediently stepped aside as John got up and shoved his way past Paul. As he passed him, he patted Paul's side and let his hand graze lightly across Paul's stomach. Luckily, their German friend didn't seem to notice that small affectionate gesture as he was crouched on the floor, sweeping up John's hair.  
  
"Come on, Paul, take a seat. You're next." Jürgen laughed once he got up, and Paul sighed heavily, muttering silent curses in an extra thick accent just in case Jürgen understood any of those swear words.  
  
Paul had always taken good care of his hair. He loved his DA which he had groomed under the most difficult circumstances at home, with his dad threatening him to cut his hair like a proper young man or he would throw him out. Paul had fought for it, just like he had fought for his tight drainies, his leather jacket and his friendship with John. And now he was supposed to let go of one of his most beloved aspects of his self-image? It didn't seem fair to him, but then John had survived it, and he looked good. Not only good, but good in a new way that Paul hadn't thought possible. Paul had taken the opportunity to quickly wash his hair when John's was being cut, and when Jürgen started to cut off Paul's hair now, he just took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Childishly, he felt somehow that if he didn't see it, it wasn't real.  
  
It was over quicker than he'd expected. And he wouldn't have thought that he would feel so naked with his new hair.  
  
"Fucking hell, you look bloody grand!" John's voice suddenly boomed up from the bathroom and when Paul opened his eyes, he saw his friend standing at the door frame, leaning against it with his arms crossed in front of his chest and smiling that smile that had Paul blushing within a split-second.  
  
"Really?" Paul lifted his hands self-consciously to his hair. It felt -- there was no other word for it --  _weird_ , all soft and fine under his fingers, like a girl's. Despite John's sincere expression of appreciation, Paul felt a sliver of concern. "You sure it doesn't make me look soft?"  
  
John shrugged languidly. "Why, do you think mine makes  _me_  look soft?"   
  
"No!" Paul shot back immediately, and it honestly didn't -- John looked, if anything, more grown up with his new hair, edgier. The era of the DA was on its way out, and the new hair cut made John look as if he was riding the wave of something new and interesting, the look of the new decade. But that was John. John could carry anything off. Paul had wished often enough for shoulders like his, or a nose like his, or a swagger like his. John didn't have to worry that much about looking soft. But Paul...  
  
"Seriously, Paul," John cut in, as if he could read Paul's thoughts, "it doesn't make you look like a bird or owt. Well --" He paused, grinning -- "No more than usual, anyway. Come and look."   
  
"Shut up," Paul mumbled automatically, but he got up obligingly and followed John into the bathroom.   
  
"See," John said, his voice soft as he positioned Paul in front of the mirror, hands on his shoulders. "We match. Don't you like it?"   
  
"We already matched before," Paul muttered, but -- to his great relief -- he  _did_  quite like it. Jürgen had done a good job for someone who'd never cut hair before. Curiously enough, Paul felt suddenly more himself like this than he ever had with the carefully constructed DA he'd been so proud of. Meeting John's eyes in the mirror, he smiled slightly. "Yeah. It's good."   
  
John smiled back, and his hands slipped from Paul's shoulders to his waist, creeping around to his hips. Paul could feel that the movement was unintentional, but when John stepped a little closer, breath warm on the back of Paul's neck, Paul couldn't help but gasp a little, eyes closing. Behind him, John breathed, "Paul," and pressed his lips gently to the nape of Paul's neck.   
  
 _Not here_  was on the tip of Paul's tongue, but then John kissed him again, properly this time, mouth half open, and a shudder raked through Paul's body from his neck to his toes. He clutched at John's hands, holding them in place, and tipped his head back slightly. As if encouraged, John's mouth shifted to the base of Paul's jaw, the soft place below his ear, and then he was tilting his head and Paul turned to meet him, catching his mouth in a soft, slow kiss.   
  
When John pulled away, he met Paul's eyes again in the mirror, and both of them looked flushed, bright-eyed. "See," John said, in a slightly rough voice, "we look good, don't we, love?"   
  
Paul knew he wasn't talking about the hair any more. He smiled, and squeezed John's hands before he stepped away. "Yeah," he said, "we do."   
  
**   
  
"I didn't know French food could be that good!" John sighed happily when he, Paul and Jürgen stepped out of the restaurant. He patted his stomach, giving Paul a wide grin. Paul looked just as contented.  
  
"And it wasn't even expensive," Paul added, zipping up his jacket.  
  
Jürgen smiled at his friends, obviously pleased. "Told you so. It's not all just frog legs and snails," he said with a wink. "Do you want to go home now or can I show you one of my favourite places here in Paris?"  
  
The boys looked at each other and shrugged.  
  
"An after-dinner walk won't hurt, will it, John?" Paul smirked at John's eye-roll. He could read him like a book, and right now it was more than clear to him that John would rather go back to their hotel and maybe even sleep like an old man.  
  
"Suppose so," he grumbled but followed Jürgen without further ado, except for a tiny poke in Paul's ribs.  
  
Dusk was slowly setting in when they arrived a while later, and John and Paul could understand why Jürgen loved this place so much -- the Parisian opera was really a sight to behold. They didn't have buildings like that in Liverpool nor had they seen such architecture in dirty old Hamburg. This was something else, and with the red and orange coloured sky on this clear day, it looked even more magnificent still.  
  
"Do you like it?" Jürgen asked after a little moment of silence, even though he could surely see the answer on their faces already.  
  
"It's bloody terrific," Paul replied with a smile. "Don't you think, Johnny?"  
  
But John only stared back at Paul, the corners of his mouth twitching, and before Paul was given the chance to recognise the mischievous glimmer in the other's eyes, John put one hand on his chest, thrust out the other towards Paul and began to sing in a thick Italian accent -- "Oh, this is the night, it's a beautiful night, and we call it  _bella notteee_!"  
  
Usually, Paul would have just laughed or rolled his eyes at him or felt embarrassed, but this was Paris and he recognised that song instantly -- he and Mike used to sing it as children, calling themselves the Nerk Twins before he and John requisitioned that moniker for themselves. It also came in handy that Paul loved this Disney song, just as much as John did.  
  
Without thinking twice, he mimicked John's pose and joined in, "Look at the skies, they have stars in their eyes on this lovely  _bella notte_."  
  
They both pretended that they were serenading Jürgen, who was visibly on the verge of dying of embarrassment while people around them were giving them funny looks. At this very moment, though, they couldn't have cared less. It was a foreign city, nobody apart from their German friend knew them and they were just  _so fucking_  happy at this very moment that singing some corny Disney song about love seemed to be the only appropriate thing to do. Eventually, they ended up dancing like madmen around and with each other and Jürgen couldn't help himself; he took a few pictures of them with Paul's camera and let them entertain themselves with acting like clowns or fake lovers or whatever they were trying to be.  
  
"Hey, if those come out good," John said, panting, as he stumbled over to Jürgen after the final notes of their song had died away, "make sure you send us copies, eh?"   
  
"We'll need 'em for advertising," Paul chimed in gravely, nodding as he caught up to John, but the gleam in his eye betrayed him, especially when John glanced sidelong at him and they both collapsed in laughter again.   
  
"Advertising or not," Jürgen said, smiling, "They are on Paul's camera," he reminded them, holding it out. "But there are others, from the other day, which I will send if you like. You will be in the same place, in Liverpool, I presume?"   
  
"Yeah," John said, after a minute, but Paul caught the hesitation. He didn't blame John. In the Parisian evening, with the sky turning colours all around them and the gorgeous domed roofs of the city silhouetted against it, the prospect of going back to dreary old Liverpool was not an appealing one. Nor, he had to admit, was the prospect of returning to their old selves, the ones who didn't hold each other's hands or touch like -- like they'd been doing. When they went home, they would have to talk about it. All Paul wanted for now was to take John's hand and dance off with him around this strange and beautiful city as if he hadn't a care in the world.   
  
Still, they had time. They wouldn't have to go back for a while yet.   
  
"Well," Paul said, looking at John, "it's getting a bit late. Thanks for showing us this place, though, Jürgen, mate. We really appreciate it. It was really worth seeing."   
  
As if he had caught on to Paul's intention, John nodded and chimed in, "Yeah, cracking view. Sorry for the, uh..."   
  
"The singing?" Jürgen waved a hand. "I should have known to expect it." He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement. "Goodnight, then. I'm sure I will see you again before you go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The incident with Alice [really happened](http://paulmcfruity.tumblr.com/post/16182842804/after-about-a-month-of-living-in-paris-john).


	9. Chapter 9

By the time they were halfway back to the hotel, Paul felt John's fingers brushing against the inside of his wrist. Heart pounding in his throat, he very carefully, gently turned his hand, rubbing back against John's, until their palms slid together, fingers tangling. It was getting dark now, and the street was deserted. Paul swallowed hard and murmured, without daring to look at John, "I dunno about you, but I'm ready for bed."   
  
John's fingers shifted slightly, his index finger rubbing a slow circle in the centre of Paul's palm that made him shiver all the way across his shoulders. "Yeah," John said, very softly, "me too."   
  
The hotel, when they reached it, was as quiet as the street below. They made it up the stairs to their room in record time, depositing their jackets and shoes near the door and then moving, as if by silent mutual agreement, towards the bathroom together to brush teeth and wash faces, preparing for bed with uncharacteristic decisiveness. By the time Paul came to shrugging out of his shirt and trousers, he could feel that his breath was coming quick and shallow, his heart racing. On the other side of the bed, John was undressing too. When he got down to his undershorts and t-shirt, Paul only had a moment to notice how smooth and pale his thighs were before John tugged the covers back and dived into the bed like a cannonball.   
  
"What?" he demanded, when Paul eyed him in bemusement.   
  
"Nowt," Paul said, but in truth, he was grateful to John for having broken the strange air of anticipation that had been hanging over both of them. When he slid into the bed himself, he rolled easily onto his side to face John, and John grinned back at him, tucking one hand under the pillow and bringing his knees up so they bumped against Paul's.   
  
"Comfortable?" John asked. He shifted, not pointedly, but enough that Paul was very conscious of the press of John's bare leg to his, his bare feet brushing Paul's own.   
  
Paul swallowed. "Nearly," he said, and then, as matter-of-factly as possible, nudged his knee in between John's so their legs were locked neatly together, warm and close.   
  
"Better now?" John smiled and shifted a bit closer. His hand sneaked shyly over to Paul's, covering it and giving it a gentle squeeze.  
  
"Much better," Paul smiled back, breathing a sigh of relief when John's thumb began to trace tiny circles on his hand.  
  
It was silly, really, to blush at these simple gestures -- holding hands and innocent cuddling in bed -- since only yesterday they had done far worse things than that. This, this was just children's stuff, tame affectionate touches. However, as insignificant as they were, compared to snogging and having sex, they meant just as much to them, maybe even more. What made the small gestures frightening was what they indicated: that it wasn't all about sex; it was more than that. As for Paul, he was slightly afraid to think about what exactly this meant and what that made him, but when he caught a glimpse of John's smile in the dim moonlight from outside, the perfect white flash of his teeth, he quickly forgot about his worries.  
  
"Come here," he murmured and hooked an arm around John's middle, drawing him into an embrace. John didn't hesitate, going along immediately with Paul's movements and allowing himself be pulled into a hug. His smile half-teasing, he rubbed his nose against Paul's and couldn't resist the temptation to brush their lips together.  
  
"Mmm." Paul laughed softly in his throat and pressed back into John's kiss. Their lips pressed dryly, chastely together, once, twice, a third time. Then Paul felt John murmur, shifting slightly so their bodies were closer together, and John tilted his head, mouthing at Paul's lips with his own slightly parted. It would have been exactly what Paul wanted at this moment, except --   
  
"Ow, John." He reached up blindly between them to tug John's glasses off his nose. "Get rid of these first, eh?"   
  
"Oops." John grinned back at him a little shyly in the dark. "Sorry, forgot." He folded the spectacles and set them down on the nightstand. "What's the old rhyme -- 'Boys don't make passes at blokes who wear glasses'?"   
  
Paul felt himself blush. "That's not the rhyme," he said primly, "and anyway this isn't a  _pass_."   
  
Even in the dark, Paul could  _feel_  John raising his eyebrows. "Oh, really?" He leaned in again and nipped at Paul's lower lip, catching it between his teeth very gently, but still unexpectedly enough that Paul's breath caught. "Maybe we're just being too subtle." Closing his eyes, John nuzzled his nose against Paul's, rubbed their cheeks together. "Come on, Paul. Give us a kiss."   
  
"All right, all right," Paul grumbled, smiling nevertheless, "Impatient git."  
  
He tilted his head just a bit until he could feel John's lips brushing his, and parted them immediately. It was a funny thing, really. He felt like a dirty little teenager with no experience all over again. He knew he was too eager for John to properly kiss him, but given how eager John was himself, his tongue darting out and taking a first taste from Paul's lips, it was okay to be like this. It was okay for him, for both of them to feel clumsy and embarrassed, yet eager and excited about it. This was new, despite their familiarity with each other, but, in a way, that was exactly what made it so special. They knew each other inside and out. Taking things to a new level only seemed, in this moment, the logical thing to do. Paul reached up to cup the back of John's head as he deepened the kiss, and John made a pleased sound at the back of his throat. His hands began to roam down the plain of Paul's back, the knobs of his spine, until one of them settled somewhat hesitantly on the small of his back, barely touching the cure of his backside.  
  
"It's okay, Johnny," Paul whispered with a shy smile. He gave John another peck on his lips as he reached around and took John's hand, moving it down further until John was cupping him properly. "You can touch me. It's okay."  
  
John seemed to freeze for a second, body tensing, before he relaxed again, his fingers shifting reflexively against Paul through the thin fabric of his undershorts. His hand was warm, and when John gathered the courage to squeeze gently, then run his hand gently up a little and back down, Paul shivered, rocking against him involuntarily.   
  
"Paul." John sounded breathless now, and his hand moved with a little more certainty, stroking up to the bare skin of Paul's waist beneath his t-shirt and then back down again over the curve of his arse to his upper thigh, over and over in broad, firm strokes. Paul couldn't help but push closer, his own hands slipping under John's shirt and mapping the warm plain of his back, sliding up the dip of his spine.   
  
It wasn't -- it wasn't as if this was  _sex_ , not exactly, and Paul knew it, but there was still something ridiculously, hotly exciting about it that he barely ever felt with girls any more, the thrill of something new. John's mouth slid wetly against his, the insides of his lips smooth and gentle as they sucked on Paul's upper lip, then his lower, and when Paul felt the sharp nip of John's teeth again, he couldn't help but groan, shoving his hips against John's.   
  
"Fuck," he murmured against John's mouth, and the hand under John's shirt slid up, up to curve over the bare line of John's strong shoulder, holding him steady. His other hand tracked over the shirt, into John's hair, and both of John's hands were on Paul's arse now, hauling their bodies flush together where it counted. Paul panted, listening to the tight little sounds of John's breathing. They kissed again, harder this time, formlessly, and John pulled, hard enough that a wild shock tore through Paul's body at the contact, the unmistakable heat of John's cock against his through two thin layers of cotton.   
  
Paul's fingers fluttered in John's hair, shifted down to cup the warm nape of his neck as he rolled his hips against John's, his whole body hot with want. John's mouth was sweet and urgent against his, John's tongue stroking his own. Paul couldn't remember the last time a kiss had felt like this.  
  
He felt dizzy,  _high_ , as John kissed him and they ground their clothed cocks together, but it was the best feeling in the world. His skin tingled where John touched him and the urgency behind their kiss, which grew ever deeper and more frantic, left him breathless. With a small groan, he pressed his thigh against John's body and John rocked back against it without hesitation.  
  
"Please, Macca," he whispered into the kiss, low and insistent. Paul wasn't exactly sure what  _please_  meant, but he rocked harder against John anyway, breaking the kiss to get air. John took the opportunity to graze his teeth along Paul's neck and then to suck at it, the tip of his tongue caressing the tender skin while Paul shivered against him.  
  
Briefly, the thought of rolling onto his back and letting John between his legs crossed Paul's mind, but he quickly chased it away. He wasn't sure if he wanted that, if he could do that now. At the moment, he was fine with lying on his side and grinding against John. Like this, it felt somehow more as if they were still equals.   
  
"Paul," John murmured, nuzzling into the hollow of Paul's throat. The sensation of his late-evening stubble, scraping against the fine skin, was as intense as it was alien, making Paul whimper and clutch at John's shoulders even before John opened his mouth to suck gently at Paul's skin. Then -- then it was better; he felt himself bucking involuntarily against the shallow of John's pelvis, hooking his ankle around the back of John's calf to lock their bodies tighter together, seeking more friction. John's mouth was hot and clever and Paul could feel the blood rising up under the skin in the shape of John's bite.   
  
There would be a bruise there tomorrow, Paul realised, and the thought made his blood thump excitedly, thinking of it, John's mark in the hollow of his throat. Walking around with John's lovebite on him, as if John had claimed him.   
  
"God," Paul muttered breathlessly, and then he was fisting his hand in John's newly-shorn hair, tugging him back so his neck arched, long and pale. He dived in without thinking, finding his own place under the shelf of John's jaw and sucking, loving the way John jerked and thrashed against him.   
  
"Jesus Christ," John said, hands going to Paul's hips, pulling him in tighter, if that were even possible. "God, yeah, keep going -- please --" He pinned Paul still, rutted up fiercely against him, and Paul felt a harsh cry rising up in his throat at the sudden intensity, the hot line of John's dick rubbing directly against his own.  
  
If they had been braver, one of them would have eventually made to get rid of their boxers. Paul wasn't that brave, though. All the while he was grinding against John's erection and sucking on his neck, determined to leave his own mark there, Paul was waiting for it, waiting for John to make the move and get rid of that last bloody layer of cloth. But nothing came, and Paul found that he wasn't too disappointed. He was actually quite relieved, if he was honest. They were taking things slow -- for a certain measure of 'slow' that involved rubbing their cocks against one another with their tongues down each other's throats -- and that was another part of what Paul liked about John. He understood.  
  
"Come on, John," he rasped as he peppered John's mouth with tiny desperate kisses, "Come for me, love."  
  
And that was all John needed at that moment to be pushed over the edge. With a curse and a hard kiss that had Paul almost dizzy from pleasure, he tightened his hold on Paul's arse and pulled him firmly close as John's own hips snapped forward. John's movements were frantic and became more unfocused the closer he got to his orgasm. When it finally happened, he sucked hard on Paul's tongue, body convulsing, and Paul felt his mind unhinge.   
  
He'd never felt another boy come. He'd never thought he'd want to, either, but there was something about it, feeling the way John twitched and pulsed and spurted between their bodies, that made Paul groan and buck and catch his breath, fingernails digging into John's back, raking down it where a fine sweat had broken out.   
  
"John," he panted, "John," and his hips rocked forward spasmodically, rutting fast and hard and firmer now against John's softening cock.   
  
"Sssh," John murmured, gasping for breath. His cheeks were flushed and his voice was thready, but Paul felt his mouth slackly on his jaw, then mouthing at the corner of Paul's lips. "Come on, love, here -- here --"   
  
John tugged, hand still firm on Paul's arse, and they went over like that, John onto his back and Paul flat on top of him and oh,  _fuck_  --   
  
"Oh," Paul panted, shocked by the sudden pleasure of it, the new contact, the way his dick slid so easily in the groove of John's pelvis, rutting against his hipbone as he thrust down against him. "God -- please --"   
  
"Sssh," John hushed him again, as Paul's thrusts grew faster, more erratic, and then his hand was in Paul's hair and he was mashing their mouths together, nipping at Paul's lower lip as Paul jerked and fucked forward and came.   
  
The last time they'd come together, just wanking, it had been good, but this was incredible, the deep fierce pulses of it that felt torn right out of the core of Paul as he shivered and shook, spilling so much that it began to seep through the fabric of his shorts. For a brief, wild moment, he wished he could have come all over John's stomach, bare where his shirt had ridden up. Then another wave of pleasure caught him, and he couldn't think of anything any more until it had gone, left him breathless and boneless, and he collapsed onto John, face tucked into the curve of his throat.   
  
Dimly, Paul registered how John kissed his forehead and caressed his side as he held him, strong arms wrapped around him, holding him securely. Paul couldn't have been happier. He planted light kisses to John's neck and nuzzled his jaw briefly before he lifted himself up, earning a questioning look from the other boy.  
  
"Got to get these off," he said with a sheepish smile as he pointed at his boxers. "It's fucking disgusting otherwise, isn't it?"  
  
"Mhm, the disadvantages of being male," John agreed, chuckling, and watched Paul with unabashed interest. Paul blushed slightly as he took off his sticky underwear and threw it onto the little pile of his worn clothes. When he lay down again, John gave him a funny look.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Aren't you going to put on a new pair?"  
  
"No." Paul smiled and buried one half of his face in their pillow.  
  
John laughed. "Dirty bastard," he muttered, but took his boxers off as well, dropping them carelessly on the ground next to their bed.  
  
"Now who's being dirty?" Paul interjected.  
  
"Shut it, Macca. Never said I was clean, did I?" John chided him in a mock-serious tone and lay down again. Immediately, he pulled Paul back into his arms.  
  
It was nice, lying together like this. John's skin was warm and a little damp, the sex-flush cooling slowly until they were both breathing steadily, curled nakedly into each other. All the angles and planes and curves of their bodies seemed to fit together as if they had been made a matched set, John's broad chest the perfect pillow for Paul's head. Paul felt good like this. He felt  _loved_.   
  
It was probably lucky that he was too comfortable to say anything before he fell asleep, the gentle motions of John's chest lulling him under.   
  
**  
  
The next day, they slept late. It must have been noon by the time Paul blinked lazily into awareness, the light slanting yellow across the bed. Beneath him, John was still asleep, but as Paul made to carefully get up, John shifted and murmured, clutching at Paul's back.   
  
"Oy," Paul said firmly, "let me up."   
  
"Timezit?" John demanded, blinking.   
  
"Late, probably," Paul said, squeezing John's outstretched hand as he slipped out of the bed. "Come on, lazybones, I want to go for a bit of an explore. We've done beautiful Paris, how about we do real Paris?"   
  
John snorted. "You what?"   
  
Paul shrugged his shoulders and reached for his jeans. His utterly ruined undershorts from last night were still on top of them, and Paul tried not to blush as he kicked them aside. "Well, y'know. This area."   
  
"You mean  _seedy_  Paris," John said with a leer, sitting up. Paul pursed his lips at that look on John's face, but at least he looked more eager to actually get out of bed.   
  
"Well," Paul protested, and John laughed.   
  
"No, love, I like your thinking. Let's go and mooch around the red light district, eh, see what weird places we can find. We fit in with the weird lot, usually."   
  
"We're not weird," Paul muttered under his breath, and John smiled at him as he stood and stretched, apparently unconcerned about his nakedness.   
  
"No, we're not," he said, ruffling Paul's hair.   
  
Paul only slapped John's hand away from his hair with a roll of his eyes and a poorly concealed smile.


	10. Chapter 10

Once they were outside, it didn't take them long to find the  _naughty part_  of Montmartre, which was called Pigalle -- they had already been here, after all, although it had been by accident the first time. Now, in the daylight, the streets were thronging with tourists of all sorts. The boys felt a wave of familiarity was over them at the sight. Hamburg was almost exactly the same: tourists, sex shops, strip clubs. Everything was the same. Except for the people holding hands in public with apparent unconcern, most of whom would never have dared to do so in Germany. While John stared at the occasional male or even female couple, Paul only ducked his head, cheeks pink.  
  
"And I thought the corner where our hotel is was bad," John laughed softly to himself and glanced at Paul. His laughter stopped quickly. "Are you all right?"  
  
"What?" Paul looked up at him, clearing his throat. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. I just..." He glanced around with a small shrug. "I just wonder why the fuck nobody here seems to be afraid of, you know..." He pointed at John's hand, swallowing. "Holding hands. I still can't wrap my head around it."   
  
"Well, I'm afraid there's only one thing we can do then, Paul." John sighed dramatically, which was Paul's cue to prompt him.   
  
"...Yes?"  
  
With a dead serious look on his face, John took Paul's hand and linked their fingers. "We have to try it ourselves. So far we've only done it when it was dark. Let's get a bit braver, yeah?"  
  
"You're a loony, John Winston."  
  
"Quite the contrary," John declared loftily, "I'm a brave warrior, young Paulstram. Bold Sir Winston, crusading for good --"  
  
"Oh, shut up," Paul said, laughing, but he squeezed John's hand a little and enjoyed the way it made John's smile get even wider, the corners of his eyes crinkling.   
  
"Come on," John said, "I don't know about you, but I'm hungry. Let's go and see if we can get breakfast -- lunch -- whatever it is in one of these little places. Eavesdrop on the locals."   
  
"They'll be speaking French," Paul pointed out sensibly.   
  
John waved a dismissive hand. "Something as trifling as that will not hold back Bold Sir Winston," he said, tugging Paul into a nearby establishment that looked like a cross between a café and a bar, with little round tables and a long counter where it seemed that alcohol was available all day.   
  
As it turned out, they didn't get to do much eavesdropping. John and Paul had barely sat down, having released each other's hands politely as they entered the café, when they noticed that an older gentleman to their left was eyeing them with interest.   
  
"Hey." John nudged the side of Paul's foot with his own. "We've got company."   
  
Paul looked over, trying to be subtle, but he must have been more obvious than he'd intended, because the man caught his eye immediately and grinned.   
  
Blushing, Paul tore his eyes away, but it was too late. The man whispered something to his companion, and then they were both looking over, expressions of something like amusement on their handsome faces.   
  
"John," Paul muttered anxiously, and John's brows pulled together at once.   
  
"Here," he demanded, "what do you two think you're staring at? We've got as much right to be here as you, you know."   
  
"Oh," said the first man, in near-perfect English, "I can see that, my dears."   
  
Paul blinked. "I beg your pardon?"   
  
The second man laughed. "Well," he said, gesturing. "You know."   
  
John raised an eyebrow rather belligerently. "Sorry, I don't think we do."   
  
Undoubtedly he had meant to come off as threatening, but his attitude immediately sent both Frenchmen into gales of laughter.   
  
"My dears," said the first man, "if you didn't want people to know about your relationship, it is advisable not to hold hands in the street,  _non_? English boys, so I hear, do not do that unless they...as you say...have a right to be here." He waved his arms expansively. "In this...special café."   
  
John shot Paul a side-glance; the latter shifted nervously his weight in his chair.  
  
"So what?" John eventually retorted, "Maybe we don't want to hide anything away, huh? Everyone else here seems happy to walk around with everything on show." He ignored Paul's hand squeezing his arm and his urgently hushed, "John, stop it."  
  
The two men only looked each other with wide grins, shaking their heads. "Well," said the first man, "in England, you have the police to fear,  _non_? But here in France, there is nothing the law can do. Since the  _code Napoleon_ , you know. People can frown, but..." He spread his hands expansively, and the second man smiled.   
  
"Here," he said, kindly, "we are not illegal."   
  
John was so surprised by this pronouncement that for a moment he could only blink. The Frenchmen seized upon his hesitation.  
  
"May we join you?" the first one asked, but that his question was a mere formality was made obvious enough when he got up and walked over to the boys' table, closely followed by his companion.  
  
"What the-- no!" John glared, but it was too late. The Frenchmen sat down with their drinks on the unoccupied chairs and eyed John and Paul with amusement written all over their faces.  
  
"I'm Jasper," the first one said, adjusting his spectacles. "And this is Pascal."  
  
"Pleased to meet you," Pascal smiled. His English sounded worse than Jasper's, had a thicker French accent. He looked a bit nervous as well, which was a small comfort to Paul who had subconsciously inched closer to John and sat now with his leg pressed up firmly against John's, their hips almost connecting.  
  
John was equally uncertain, but he introduced himself, anyway. "John. And this is Paul," he muttered reluctantly.  
  
Jasper, meanwhile, didn't seem remotely put off by the boys' shifting closer together, Paul's nerves or John's defensiveness. He simply smiled and took out a silver cigarette case from his pocket, flipping it open neatly to reveal a row of white tabs. "Cigarette?" He held it out.   
  
Paul glanced at John, who was eyeing the case warily. After a moment, he evidently decided that the peace offering was worth accepting, at least for the free fag. "Thanks," he said, his tone still sullen but less aggressive than before. He took two cigarettes, and handed one to Paul.   
  
Paul fumbled in his pocket for his lighter, but Pascal beat him to it, smiling a little as he held out the flickering flame. From close up, Paul could see that he was about fifty, very well put together and well dressed, with dark hair greying at the temples. As the boys leaned in to light their cigarettes, Jasper cleared his throat.   
  
"So," he said, "is it your first time?"   
  
John paused, eyeing the other man a little suspiciously. "First time in Paris, or do you mean something else?"   
  
Jasper laughed, pushing his hair back with one elegant hand. He wore it longish, French fashion, and though it was largely grey, Paul supposed it must once have been reddish brown, from the streaks that remained. "You are very suspicious," the man said airily. "But perhaps you are right to be. It  _is_  your first time, isn't it?" He paused, glancing between them. "Being with another boy?"   
  
John almost choked on an inhalation of smoke, taking the cigarette abruptly from his mouth and coughing into his hand. "I -- "   
  
"Sssh, John," Paul broke in, laying a hand on his back. To Jasper, he said, "Sorry, monsieur. It's just, we're not -- we don't..." He shrugged. "We don't really want to talk about it."   
  
"I understand your type," Jasper said, sitting back in his chair, "but you know..."   
  
"Jasper," Pascal broke in, his tone cautionary.   
  
"All right, my dear." Jasper squeezed his partner's hand briefly, and then said to Paul, "We will leave you alone, or talk about other things. But if there is anything you would like to know, we are here. We should help each other, you know. Nobody else will."  
  
Paul swallowed. He wasn't sure whether he could trust these two strangers, and as for John, he seemed just as unconvinced as he was. It was quite a private issue after all, so who were these two strangers to talk to them about it?  
  
"Well, I don't know," he shrugged, his hand still drawing soothing circles on John's back, "I mean, I -- we, we don't really know what... we..." He trailed off and gave John a worried look. John sighed deeply and reached for Paul's hand. Now that these two strangers had apparently already figured out what was going on with him and Paul -- even though they weren't sure themselves -- they might as well hold hands, if only for the comfort if afforded.  
  
Pascal smiled softly at them, as if he had noted their unease. "Maybe you have noticed that we two are also together," he said hesitantly, "and it was difficult for us to stay together. But it was worth it, wasn't it?" He looked at Jasper, apparently for confirmation, to be rewarded only with a scrunch of Jasper's nose and a small sound of affected disinterest. At Pascal's frown, though, Jasper winked and grinned.   
  
"The thing is, John and Paul, we didn't have anybody to give us any advice about how to handle this, this..." Jasper waved his hand as he searched for the right word.  
  
"Bloke-on-bloke business?" John offered with a hint of a smile.  
  
Jasper pointed at him with a grin and raised eyebrows. "Exactly. Bloke-on-bloke. I mean, I remember our first time together," He waggled his eyebrows at Pascal who, by now, had turned his face away, as if to conceal his slight embarrassment "And it was awful. Really."  
  
"I couldn't sit for days, and I hated him for a while." Pascal suddenly cut in. When he noticed the look Jasper was giving him, he smiled sheepishly. "What?"  
  
"So dramatic."  
  
John and Paul glanced at each other. They didn't know what to think of this odd pair, but in a way, it was a small comfort that these two seemed to be so casual with each other, so  _normal_  like any other couple.  
  
"Can I ask you a question?" Jasper then asked and took a drag from his cigarette.  
  
John nodded. "Sure."  
  
"Have you two already...? You know." He made some vague gestures with his hands. When the two boys registered his meaning, their expressions instantly transforming to display their mortification, Jasper only laughed roaringly.  
  
"It's nothing to be embarrassed about, you know," Pascal said softly. "Sorry about him, he..."  
  
"He what?" Jasper demanded.  
  
"You know what," Pascal told him firmly. "But..." He smiled at Paul. "If you do want to ask anything, you may. It can be wonderful if you do it properly, but if you do it wrong..."   
  
Paul tried hard not to flinch at the thought. It occurred to him that Pascal was addressing him directly, as if he thought there was an accord between them -- as if it was obvious that Paul would be the one to take the, what, the  _girl's_  position the way that apparently Pascal had done. Paul wasn't sure how he felt about that. He and John had not discussed that sort of sex at all. They hadn't even had sex of any sort with their clothes entirely off. And yet here was some French bloke suggesting Paul surrender his virgin arse to John's probing, and part of Paul was appropriately a little offended and a little afraid. But...there was another part of him that wasn't. He allowed himself to think about it for a second, John on top of him, hair falling in his eyes, and shivered.   
  
Next to him, John warily caught his eye. "Look," he said hesitantly, "we haven't decided -- I mean, me and Paul, we might not, y'know. Blokes don't  _have_  to do that."   
  
"Quite right," Jasper said affably, stubbing out his cigarette.  
  
"I mean, we're talking about buggery here," John went on aggressively, and Paul saw at once what he was doing -- everything about his attitude was defensive, afraid. Perhaps he was afraid of the whole idea of that sort of permanence; perhaps he was afraid of presuming. Perhaps he, too, was thinking about being...underneath, and it scared him. Either way, there was  _something_.   
  
"John," Paul said gently, "it's okay, y'know."   
  
"And so is the, what did you call it, the buggery, if you feel like it," Pascal said, shrugging. "So long as you don't try to do it dry. Two small pieces of advice, that you may take or leave, but I will give them anyway: fingers before cocks, my dears, and make sure you have something slick."   
  
There was a loud clatter as Paul accidentally bumped his knee off the table in his sudden flush of embarrassment, cheeks going pink. Beside him, John had half-covered his face with his hand, and was pointedly avoiding Pascal's gaze.   
  
A moment of silence passed during which Jasper just looked from Pascal to the boys, and then back again. At length, he took a slow drag from his cigarette, muttering around it, "And you apologise for  _me_  while you scare those two to death."  
  
"I'm sorry," Pascal said meekly.  
  
On the other side of the table, John and Paul were frozen in attitudes of matching embarrassment, their eyes averted from each other and from the Frenchmen. But Jasper was not one to allow himself to be avoided. "Listen," he said pointedly, leaning forward. When the two boys both reluctantly looked up at him, he gave them his friendliest smile. "Nobody's  _forcing_  you to do it that way, all right? It took Pascal and I long enough as well. It can feel -- how do you say? --  _fucking wonderful_ , but if you're not comfortable, then don't try it or else it'll go terribly wrong."  
  
John let out a small cough, trying hard to cover up his awkwardness. "Right," he muttered, "Uh, thanks a lot. I suppose." He shot a glance at Paul, whose cheeks were still determinedly pink. His head was ducked, his gaze fixed on their intertwined hands. Gently, John squeezed Paul's fingers, and was gratified when Paul glanced up, meeting his eyes. Despite his nervousness, John managed a smile, which Paul returned tentatively.  
  
"Anything else you want to tell us?" Paul ventured after a moment, John's hand clasped firmly in his.   
  
"Oh, I think that should keep you going for now, shouldn't it?" Jasper smiled beneficently. "Especially since you, as you say, might not be interested in that anyway. Which is fine, I am sure you can work the other things out without my help. For now..." He peered down at the menu -- "I think it is time for lunch, don't you? What'll you have, boys? On me."   
  
Half an hour later, with a hamburger and chips inside him, Paul felt a lot more comfortable about the whole affair. Every so often, he would still catch Jasper's eye and feel himself blushing furiously, but John was now having an animated conversation with Pascal about the Frenchman's calligraphy work, and his more relaxed attitude went a long way towards putting Paul at his ease.   
  
From time to time, both Paul and Jasper offered contributions to the conversation, but as time went on, Paul found himself saying less and less, and thinking more and more. It was true that he and John had never talked about what this, any of this, was, but...if they were to continue with it, it made sense to be prepared for all eventualities. And, Paul thought shrewdly, this sort of opportunity might not present itself very often. And although the idea of doing that with John frightened him -- a fear of how it might feel, and worse, of what it might make him if it felt good -- the image kept returning to him, of John above him, owning him. The two of them joined together as closely as it was possible to get. Paul felt his body flush, and cleared his throat.   
  
To his left, John and Pascal were still talking. Very quietly, Paul leaned across the table and asked Jasper, "If we were to...y'know. That. You said make it slick. Where can you get the, um..."   
  
Jasper laughed softly. "I will show you after. There are shops around here that will sell it cheaply, lots of it -- and you will  _need_  lots, do you hear me? Especially to start."  
  
He winked, which only set Paul blushing again. When he leaned back in his chair, though, and noticed John looking at him, the blush only deepened. He met John's eyes, raising his eyebrows slightly in question, but John said nothing -- only smiled a little and returned to his conversation, but under the table, his foot pressed against Paul's, a deliberate, reassuring push.


	11. Chapter 11

After the meal, Jasper and Pascal walked with them for a couple of streets, until a shop with shuttered windows hove into view and Jasper indicated, coughing discreetly. "You should find all you need in there. Good luck, boys, in whatever you do."   
  
"Ta," Paul smiled weakly with a nod. He could already feel John's stare burning a hole into the back of his head. Once Jasper and Pascal had left, Paul took a deep breath, deliberately resisting turning around.  
  
"So," he heard John say, the sound of his voice shifting up close behind Paul,"What was that all about?"  
  
"Hm?" Paul turned around, face conspicuously arranged into an expression of innocence, eyebrows raised at John.  
  
"You know what I mean. What is it with that shop?"  
  
"Oh, that..." Paul chewed on his lip, feeling somehow guilty for no real reason at all. It was silly of him, of course he should be able to speak openly with John about it but he was too afraid of giving the wrong impression. With his hands shoved into his pockets, he started to walk slowly towards the shop.  
  
But John was not to be dissuaded. "Yeah? I'm listening," John probed, bumping his shoulder gently against Paul's. Paul only sighed.  
  
"Come on, John, do you want me to fucking spell it for you or what?"  
  
"Why are you so touchy now?"  
  
"Well, you know," Paul shrugged, avoiding John's frown, "What those two blokes talked about... I-It got me thinking. That's all."  
  
John raised his eyebrows. "Always dangerous."   
  
"Shut up, you," Paul muttered, but his protest was half-hearted. He furrowed his brows, wondering if it might be easier just to drag John inside so he could work things out for himself when he saw where they were. But John was still eyeing him curiously, not quite following Paul's lead, and Paul sighed. "Look, they just said you could get...stuff here, okay? And I thought..." Paul bit his lip, then pushed on truthfully, "I thought it'd be better to have stuff and not use it, than suddenly find we needed some and not have any."   
  
John stopped moving abruptly, and Paul felt himself colour more fiercely under John's scrutiny. " _Stuff_?"   
  
Paul cleared his throat. "Yeah."   
  
"You mean, like --  _stuff_ , in case I'm seized by the sudden mad compulsion to bugger you up the arse?"   
  
" _John_." Paul suddenly found that he couldn't raise his eyes from the ground. John sounded scathing, almost. Paul wanted to disappear into the earth, but unfortunately he'd now gone too far to back out without scrabbling a bit. "Look, it's just, I know we don't  _intend_  to, but..."  
  
"We're not queer," John said, in the sort of reasonable tone you might use in explaining the laws of physics to a backward child.   
  
"Yeah, well," Paul threw back, suddenly irritated, "we've already accidentally snogged and accidentally wanked and accidentally held hands and God knows what else while not being queer, John, I'm just saying. It's not that it --" He sighed, but John's expression -- which had changed from something shuttered, guarded, to something almost encouraging in its blatant curiosity to hear what Paul had to say -- spurred him on. "It's not that it has to  _mean_ anything in particular, I know we're just mucking about because it...because it feels good. But other stuff might feel good too, that's all." Paul shrugged. "We don't have to."   
  
"We just...might want to," John said slowly, and Paul hastily nodded.   
  
"Yeah. And there might be some other stuff in there to get a laugh out of." He grinned at John, who grinned back and, after a second's hesitation, slipped his hand into Paul's again.   
  
"Come 'ead, then, nancy-boy."   
  
"Says the bloke holding my hand," Paul muttered, but he wasn't really upset. If anything, he was thrilling with relief at having escaped the awkward situation unscathed. As they pushed open the door and entered the shop, Paul's heart was pounding, but the warmth of John's hand in his was a reassuring anchor to hold onto.   
  
The shop itself seemed rather old-fashioned in the strangest way possible. Faded posters with nude ladies drawn on them adorned the walls, and neither John nor Paul would have thought that a sex shop could look that  _tame_. There wasn't anything tawdry or gaudy about it, no flashy neon lights to give the Hamburg porno atmosphere they were so much more familiar with. Behind the counter was a middle-aged woman, who glanced at them briefly over the rim of her thick glasses as they walked in before she averted her gaze to continue reading her book. As they started to look around, Paul couldn't help but think how discreet everything here was. If it hadn't been for the various sex toys on the shelves, it might almost have been a green grocer's.  
  
"Hey, look at that!" John suddenly called out in a hushed whisper and when Paul looked at him, John was holding up a magazine with a pin-up girl on it, a wide grin plastered on his face.  
  
"So? Don't act as if you've never seen a naughty magazine, John."  
  
"Don't be daft," John rolled his eyes. "Take a closer look. It's in  _English_."  
  
"Mmm, didn't know you were interested in reading the articles," Paul laughed quietly, earning a scowl from his friend.  
  
"Shut up. I just thought it's great to find international magazines here, s'all," John muttered as he flicked through the pages.  
  
Paul walked up close behind John to look over his shoulder for a while as they both scanned through the issue. Soon enough, his interest had been stirred up as well, and so he reached for a few magazines and looked through them.  
  
"What language is that?" John asked, peering across at what Paul had in his hands.   
  
"Italian? Spanish? I don't know."  
  
"It's all the same anyway, isn't it?"  
  
Paul smiled and put the magazine away before reaching for the next. They giggled quietly at the centrefold, then fell immediately silent when they noticed that the woman behind the counter was watching them. It didn't take long, though, before they started to laugh quietly again.  
  
"Come on, let's play something. Whoever laughs first, loses!" John then suddenly proposed with a mischievous glimmer in his eyes.  
  
"And what do you want to play?"  
  
"Porn ping-pong!"  
  
Paul only looked at John in disbelief. "What?"  
  
"We read out the headlines of those magazines to each other and see who starts laughing first." John waggled his eyebrows.  
  
Paul pursed his lips, glanced briefly at the magazines again, before he answered, "And what will the winner get?"  
  
"Nothing up his arse, that's for sure."  
  
" _John_!"  
  
" _Well_." John was pink, but grinning, and he flashed Paul a wink in response to Paul's expression of outrage. Paul fought down the little impulse inside that said he might not particularly mind being...well...because of course he  _should_ ,he  _should_  mind; he was a lad after all, and a proper lad, not some Hamburg queer. It was just this place making him mental. But the look on John's face made his chest twist confusingly and he dragged his eyes away, looking down at the racks of dirty magazines.   
  
"Fine," he muttered, grabbing for the nearest one. "You're on."   
  
"Oh, you think you can take me, McCartney?" The way John wiggled his eyebrows at that was pointed and deliberate and Paul bit his tongue, flushing scarlet.   
  
"Fuck off, John." He fumbled open the nearest magazine and held it up with a flourish. "Look at this --  _Bosom Friends_ , indeed." A number of beautiful women hung all over each other in the picture, their ample breasts pressed against each other in ways that made Paul feel slightly squirmy inside. From the look on John's face, the picture spread was having the same effect on him.   
  
"What about this one," John said, not to be outdone as he grabbed for the nearest magazine. " _Cock Fighting_?"   
  
"Looks a bit queer," Paul muttered, ignoring the flush of heat in his abdomen, and John glanced down, embarrassed.   
  
"Bloody hell."   
  
They both stared, transfixed. Paul could tell by the shift in atmosphere that both meant to look away, but something about the picture was as compelling as it was awful, the two (scarily large) dicks sliding together against their owners' flat stomachs, the two masculine mouths interlocked. Paul cleared his throat, feeling his trousers growing tight.   
  
"Well," John said, trying for levity, "they don't look like they're doing anything very complex. C minus, we've done that."  
  
Paul tried hard to contain his expression at that remark and deliberately ignored John's smirk. He merely cleared his throat, pointedly, and reached for another magazine, already grinning at the title as he read it out, " _Breakfast on Tiffany_."  
  
A stifled grunt came from John, whose hand had flown immediately to his mouth and he looked away, his whole body trembling.  
  
"Are you laughing, Lennon?" Paul quirked an eyebrow, smiling. "You know, this is a  _competition_."  
  
"Fuck off," John coughed, barely able to cover up his grin, "I'm next." With his brows furrowed in determination, he reached for the next magazine and adjusted his glasses as he looked at Paul and said with a dead serious voice, " _Breast Side Story_."  
  
The other couldn't help himself; a small, pitiful noise escaped his tightly sealed lips while he did his best to keep the corners of his mouth down. Taking a deep breath, Paul eventually asked, "And what's up next?  _My Bare Lady_?"  
  
That was what John finally cracked up, and Paul smiled to himself, feeling satisfied.  
  
"Come on," he said, "Let's look at the rest, yeah?" He reached out for the magazines John was still holding, but John quickly jerked his arm away.  
  
"Wait."  
  
"What for?"  
  
"I just..." John fell silent as he looked from Paul to the magazines he was holding. "I'm... I--I just want to have a look at -- you  _know_ ," he stammered and put the queer magazine on top of his pile.  
  
That stammer from John was uncharacteristic, and Paul couldn't bite back a grin, noticing it. "Are you  _nervous_ , Johnny?" he prodded, unable to resist.   
  
John scowled. "Nervous about what? We haven't set our minds on anything."   
  
"Not yet," Paul said. He was a bit pink in the cheeks himself, but the look on John's face was too good not to push it. "Maybe you'll be overwhelmed with ideas if you go picking through that thing."   
  
"Well," John said, rolling the magazine up, "in that case, maybe you better go and find what we came in here for. Just in case."   
  
"Oh, and what was that?"   
  
John raised one eyebrow significantly. "You're the one who was talking to the poofter Frenchies about it. You know, 'for an easy slide...'" John began making an obscene pistoning motion with one fist, and Paul coloured.   
  
"You want me to just go and ask the woman, or what?" he demanded.   
  
"No need for that, I'll ask." John cleared his throat, then put on one of his deliberate camp voices. "Please, miss, I've got a little pansy boy here needs buggering up the arse --"   
  
" _John_!" Paul clamped a hand over John's mouth, but not before the woman behind the counter had looked up at them, her eyebrows drawn together sternly. For a woman in a sex shop, she looked an awful lot like a prissy librarian, Paul thought.  
  
"Qu'est-ce que vous cherchez?" she groused with a glare at Paul, then looked at John with a face that clearly said  _how dare they interrupt her_?  
  
"Uhm, nous-- Er--" Paul's mouth opened and closed repeatedly as he tried to think of a way to explain what exactly they needed.  
  
"Mon ami et moi," John suddenly piped up as soon as he managed to fight off Paul's hand on his mouth, "nous--" He glanced at his friend, who only shrugged his shoulders. "Oh fucking hell," he grunted, "We want bloody lube, madame! Do you know what it is? _Lube_?"  
  
The woman's frown only deepened, her nostrils flaring slightly. She really was starting to get annoyed at them, it seemed.  
  
"Lube?" John repeated and then motioned unequivocal gestures with his hands, causing not only Paul but the woman, too, to redden slightly, although Paul suspected the woman was more irritated than embarrassed.  
  
"Lubrifiant?" she asked hesitantly.  
  
"Yes!  _Oui_! Praise the Lord, she got it!"  
  
With another pointed look, she got up from her chair and disappeared into the back of the shop, giving Paul enough time to pinch John's arm.  
  
"What was that?"  
  
"What?" John asked, mildly irritated at the other for hurting his bicep for no real reason at all. "I explained to her what we want!"  
  
"Well, yeah, and you said I was your boyfriend!"  
  
"I did not," John protested. "I said 'friend'."   
  
"You said  _ami_  and friend is -- or is it the other way -- oh, whatever." Paul crossed his arms, frowning. "It  _can_  mean 'boyfriend', what you said. I bet she bloody took it that way."   
  
"You mean because we're in a sex shop buying lube? Yeah, Paul, you know what, I wouldn't be surprised if she did." John rolled his eyes. "I repeat, she's gone to  _get the fucking lube_  and you're worried in case she thinks we're boyfriends? What the bloody hell else could we want it for?"   
  
"Well..." Paul trailed off. "But it's, not, like..."  
  
"Just a shag between friends?" John was pink, but he grinned wryly at Paul and reached out to squeeze his wrist. "Look, it's okay. I know what you mean, but it's just -- just easier to make it simple for other folk, you know?"   
  
Not easier if they  _were_  boyfriends, Paul noticed. Not that he wanted them to be, or anything. That would be stupid. John was just John. But perhaps it was simpler, in this strange city, to put things bluntly, even if they weren't -- quite -- meant. "Okay," he said, and John smiled at him.   
  
"Okay, good. Now, let's get the stuff and get out of here so we can go and wrestle for dominance."  
  
" _Dominance_?" Paul very nearly squeaked.  
  
John waved his hand dismissively. "Well, you know."  
  
"You're bloody unbelievable, you know that?" Paul shook his head, but then, suddenly, a thought occurred to him. There was quite a possibility that John might, on whatever level, want this too -- or at least be considering the issue. Paul didn't hear John's reply -- he only smiled slightly to himself at that realisation. And when John suddenly flipped his nose, he looked up with a frown.  
  
"I'm talking to you, son. Are you even listening to me?" John asked, but before he could continue, he was cut off by the French cashier, who chose that moment to come back into the front room.  
  
They dutifully paid for the lube -- they even had the decency to blush, and Paul avoided the woman's knowing look -- and they both would have left the shop immediately, if the compartment of sex toys hadn't caught John's eye.  
  
He flashed a grin at Paul, eyebrows waggling suggestively. And Paul's mouth dropped open.  
  
"John. No."  
  
"Come on! Let's have another laugh!"  
  
" _No_."  
  
"Aw, come on, Paul. Don't be such a little nance." John raised his eyebrows and grinned and Paul sighed theatrically, shoving John hard for good measure.  
  
"You're one to talk. You want to go and look at bloody -- sex instruments and you're calling me a nance?"   
  
"I bloody well am," John said unrepentantly. "Come on, look, just for a laugh. Here --" His hand seized around Paul's forearm and tugged, and Paul found himself powerless to resist. The display soon loomed up in front of them, stacked with a wild-looking array of what appeared to be torture devices. Cuff-like leather things were what Paul noticed first, made for wrists and ankles and necks, and then some complex looking harnesses whose purposes he couldn't identify at all. Then, further down --   
  
"What the fuck are these?" John's voice was low, as if in fear of the cashier shushing them, but it was cracking with amusement. Paul tore his eyes away from what looked like a large rubber penis (of intimidating size) to see what John was pointing at.   
  
"Huh." Paul bit his lip and peered at the thing. It looked, from this distance, like a string of faux-pearls, gradually increasing in size from very small to about the size of a plum stone. A ring was attached after the largest plastic bead. "Looks like a necklace."   
  
"Yeah." John snorted a laugh through his teeth. "Very much doubt it is though. Here, missus!" John waved the string of beads in the air and Paul darted forward immediately to clap a hand over his mouth.   
  
"John!"   
  
"All right, all right." John winked at him, and then, after a second's deliberation, slipped the string of beads neatly into his pocket. "Tell you what, we can find out what they're for on our own time, eh?"   
  
He sauntered off towards the door, whistling, leaving Paul with no option but to follow.   
  
**  
  
"Daddy!"   
  
John jerked, the pen slipping from his hand. Not that he'd been writing anything of value, but it was always nice to doodle idly as he...reminisced. He cleared his throat. His recollections had just been getting to the, uh, the good part, and now here was his little boy pawing at his legs. John fought back a little wave of irritation. He'd been trying so hard to be a better father this time around, didn't want to snap at Sean, but seriously?   
  
"What, pet?" John muttered, trying not to sound too disinterested.   
  
"Teatime," Sean said, beaming up at John beatifically. John sighed. He loved his son, but one moment, he'd been back in Paris with Paul and their youthful dreams, and now here he was being called to go and eat rice with rice with his wife who barely touched him any more. It all seemed a bit disheartening.  
  
"Is it really that late?" John sighed and reached out to ruffle Sean's hair. Sean giggled, looking up at John with wide dark eyes.  
  
"Mommy told me to tell you."  
  
"All right." John smiled wryly at his son and leaned forward to kiss the top of his head. "Tell her I'll come in a minute, will you?" As much as John had hoped that Sean might just leave him alone for five more minutes, the child gave him a strange look, shifting his weight impatiently from one leg to another.  
  
"Daddy?"  
  
"Please, love," John said with a gentle voice, trying hard not to let his irritation show, "Daddy's working here. I'll join you two in a few minutes."  
  
"Okay." Sean nodded slowly and popped his thumb back into his mouth before he reluctantly left the room. John could see from the way his shoulders fell that his son was just a little disappointed. And yet, although John felt a pang in his chest at the sight, he told himself he could make it up to Sean later. Not now, not when all he wanted to do was to slip back into the warmth of his most favourite memory.  
  
The night before his birthday.


	12. Chapter 12

"You  _do_  know that my birthday's tomorrow, right?"  
  
Paul chuckled at that. "'Course I do. I'm your best mate after all, aren't I?"  
  
" _Well_."  
  
"Shut up, love." And with that, Paul leaned in and pressed his lips chastely against John's.  
  
Somehow, ever since they had arrived here in Paris, and ever since they had started doing  _things_ , they had become swiftly more and more used to it, as if they had been doing it for years. It felt natural, kissing John. The oddness that should have been there, the wrongness, had somehow got lost. Paul shivered at the way John lightly trailed his tongue along Paul's bottom lip and coaxed his mouth open. Once they were kissing properly, John reached up to grab Paul's neck, his fingertips lightly drawing circles on Paul's sensitive skin.  
  
After a while, Paul withdrew from the kiss, panting slightly.  
  
"Fuck, I'm nervous about this, John. What if those two old poofters were wrong with this lube stuff and just taking the piss?"  
  
"It'll be all right, Paul, don't worry."   
  
They had agreed that John would be the one on top, that he'd be the one to take Paul. "I'm older," had formed the larger part of John's argument, and as ever, it trumped most protests. At first Paul had of course put up resistance, and had quarrelled with John about it a couple of times, but in the end -- if he was being honest with himself -- he had thought about it often enough, anyway. The protest had only happened for his honour's sake, and nothing else. Also, it would be John's birthday soon, so who was he to spoil it for his friend?  
  
Still, though, the anxiety niggled at the back of Paul's mind. This was -- this was  _big_ , this was. It felt different. John had assured him that it wasn't, really; in his typical Lennonesque way, he had been able to provide a ready answer for all of Paul's concerns. That was John, always, although Paul knew it was more than a little his fault for being so corruptible.  _We're not like this, John_ , Paul had said, to which John had pointed out that they'd not been queer earlier, either, but all the other stuff had still felt good -- "and queers aren't special people with biologically different arseholes, you know, Paul. If it feels nice, it's gonna feel nice -- the end. You know?" And Paul had agreed, because that was all very logical, but the thing he couldn't quite bring himself to say was that this, unlike everything else, felt like it would really mean something -- and, worse, Paul didn't want to put this to John because he thought John would undoubtedly say 'don't be daft, it doesn't mean anything'. And Paul, for whatever conflicted reason, did not want to hear that from John.   
  
 _Stop being such a girl_ , he chided himself sternly.  _It's just sex. It's just John._  
  
It was the second thing, more than the first, that made Paul relax, breathing steadily, long slow breaths.   
  
"All right?" John asked him, uncharacteristically gentle. "Look -- we don't have to do it right now, you know. We can work up to it."   
  
That sounded better. If Paul didn't have to think about it as a great looming eventuality, maybe he'd be able to let the other part of himself, the part that rather wanted the solid weight of John on top of him, take over.   
  
"Just kiss me, eh?" He tugged at John's collar and John laughed, not cruelly.   
  
"Of course, love. I think I can manage that."   
  
He leaned in. Paul leaned up, tilting his chin, and then their mouths met and clung, John's lips giving softly against Paul's own. After a few soft kisses, the next ones were deeper, lips working more insistently against each other, until John broke away, breathless, pushing at Paul's clavicle.   
  
"Haven't shaved, I see, McCartney. Come on, lie down."   
  
"Shut up," Paul said, but he let himself be pushed, went down easily onto his back on the little bed. Above him, John smiled, one hand creeping out to brush Paul's cheek with an unusual gentleness, and then he settled himself down over Paul, half on top of him, one leg thrown over Paul's thigh.   
  
"C'mere," John said, turning Paul's face to his. Another kiss, and this time John didn't hesitate, didn't confine himself to brief brushes of mouths. His tongue slid wetly against Paul's and Paul groaned, arching his back involuntarily. If John would only go on kissing him like this, he thought he could do anything for him. He'd never met a lass who kissed as well as John.  
  
Eventually, John slid a hand down, along Paul's body, and cupped him gently through his trousers. It wasn't needy or anything, just a friendly grope to encourage Paul a bit. He sighed and pressed himself up slightly against the palm of John's hand, before he put his own hand over John's and applied pressure to it. Paul could feel John's lips curving up into a smile, and when John squeezed and rubbed him gently, Paul smiled, too.  
  
They took their time with getting undressed and approaching their 'goal' for the day. Paul was still tense, still a bit nervous at the back of his mind, and John, unusually sweet with him, did everything to take Paul's mind off what they were going to do. When they undressed, they undressed one another, and somehow, it was better in a strange way than it had been with girls before. Maybe because they were taking their time, unworried by the possibility of a sudden parental intrusion. With random girls, or even some of their girlfriends, it was always rather quick unless they felt a bit more affectionate than usual. But with John, whom Paul knew better than any other person, there was a familiarity about it that made it feel like a coming-together, as if they had been made for this.  
  
Usually, Paul would have cringed at that thought -- soft as it was and so very queer -- but not now. Not as John carefully took off Paul's shirt and kissed his neck and made those pleased little sounds. If wanting this made him a nancy boy, well, then he couldn't care less at the moment.  
  
"Maybe we should've had a bit more beer," Paul ventured, made slightly nervous by the shift in atmosphere, the strange new warmth that curled around them as John kissed his throat, the hollow of his clavicle.   
  
When John glanced up, though, he only shook his head once, firmly, and his eyes were warm and certain. "Nah. Don't want to be drunk for this, Paul." Softly, he pressed his mouth to Paul's nipple, mouthed at it a little, but it wasn't the sensation that made Paul gasp so much as the way John held his eyes, as if he'd decided, now that they'd come this far, that any kind of nervousness could just go to hell. As if they'd jumped off the bridge now, and could do nothing other than just fucking swim when they hit the water. "I want to see you."   
  
"Jesus Christ, John." Paul sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, hand twisting into John's hair, gripping it tightly.   
  
Evidently, John was encouraged by the gesture, because his head dipped again and then his mouth was warm and wet around Paul's nipple, sucking at it, and then, just when Paul was beginning to feel slightly as if John had been possessed by some unfamiliar gentle creature, nipping at it with his teeth. Paul scrambled for John's shirt, still hanging loosely off his shoulders, resisting the urge to arch up against John's mouth.   
  
"Let me just," he managed, "can I --" He could only manage fragments of sentences with John's mouth working him like that, tugging at him. It was as if all the sensation in his body had been drawn to that one point, surging up under John's mouth, and it was all Paul could do to bite back a moan as he shoved the cotton off John's shoulders, feeling them warm and smooth and bare under Paul's palms. Girls didn't feel like this, didn't touch like this, so blunt and sure. Often enough, Paul had admired the breadth of John's shoulders from across the stage, but even since they'd been here, in Paris, he'd felt not quite able to touch, to explore. Now he could do anything he wanted; now he could feel the shift of John's muscles under his skin, bite at the smoothness until there were red marks. Except that John had shifted his mouth lower, now, licking a wet trail towards Paul's navel, and Paul suddenly couldn't concentrate on anything but that, the muscles in his thighs jerking in anticipation.  
  
It took all of Paul's willpower to bite back the moan that wanted to escape him. Instead, he took a deep breath, swallowed, and then reached out to cup John's cheek.  
  
"Johnny?" he said, softly, and John looked up at him, grinning as he gave the sensitive skin right below Paul's navel a brief lick. Curse that Lennon. "John," Paul tried again, flicking his tongue over his lips, "I--What... What do you want to do now?"  
  
He wasn't really sure himself what exactly he was hoping for but seeing John so close to his abdomen, feeling his weight against him, and his warm breath ghosting over his skin... It surely gave him some ideas what could happen next.  
  
"What do you mean?" John asked and continued to kiss Paul's stomach, licking and nibbling at it, heedless of Paul's gasps and squirms in response.  
  
"Are you--?" And Paul didn't even need to finish the question. Something very close to fear crossed John's features briefly, before he managed to compose himself. Paul could see that John was contemplating the answer, but nothing came, only John's hands decisively unzipping Paul's trousers and peeling them down his thighs.  
  
"John...?"  
  
"Just wait and see, alright, Macca?" John sighed as he carelessly dropped Paul's trousers on the floor. Then, he leaned forward and gave Paul a brief kiss, his voice low when he spoke. "I have no idea what I'll do. Let's just see what happens, okay?"  
  
"Okay." Paul nodded, and John kissed him again before reapplying himself to his task, mouthing at the fine skin of Paul's abdomen.  
  
In the meantime, Paul had lain down again with his eyes closed. He knew he was moaning feebly as John stroked his inner thighs and circled his navel with his tongue, but somehow it was impossible to stop. Blindly, he reached out to pet John's hair, but found it unexpectedly much lower than he had expected it -- and then he felt something hot and damp pressing against his clothed dick, and opened his eyes to see John dragging his parted lips tentatively along Paul's hardening erection.  
  
"John, I--"  
  
"Shut up, Paul, or you'll ruin it." John shot him a brief look, and only now did Paul notice how pink John's cheeks were.  
  
Ruining things at this juncture was the last thing Paul wanted, so he nodded tightly and murmured acquiescence, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to close his eyes again. There was something hotly, wrongly thrilling about the sight of John like this, crouched between Paul's legs, mouthing gently at the straining line of Paul's erection. Often enough, Paul had seen that mouth curled in a sneer or doling out sarcastic remarks, but now it was only soft, hesitant, as it shaped the spine of Paul's cock. Transfixed, his chest heaving shallowly with his breaths, Paul pulled himself up on his elbows, feeling himself harden further with anticipation as John's mouth moved upward. Then, a shift, and John's lips were pressed hard and closed to the head of Paul's dick where the fabric was wet with anticipatory precome.  
  
"John!" Paul spat the word like a bullet, more surprise than anything, and then John hummed softly against him and Paul could barely breathe.  
  
"John," he murmured again, hands finding John's shoulders, carding up through his soft hair, slightly damp now with sweat. He felt unhinged, suddenly, his thighs trembling, aching to press up against John's mouth, but John was taking his time, uncertain, and Paul knew that a wrong move might make him stop.  
  
"Sshhh," John admonished, softly. Then, a dampness, and pressure; Paul bit his lip at the sight of John pushing the flat of his tongue against the head of Paul's cock, right on the sensitive slit. John's dick, Paul had noticed with fascination, you had to draw back the foreskin before you could even see that, but Paul was smooth and cut and John's tongue felt like an electric shock as it touched him there.  
  
"Oh, Jesus," Paul gasped out, tugging at John's hair, and then he was arching his back, lifting his hips; couldn't help it any more. "John, please -- oh --"  
  
John sucked at him. Paul heard, rather than saw, the harsh breath John drew in first, the way he closed his eyes as if to block out the last of his fear and reservations, but he was sucking hard through the cotton of Paul's underwear, head tilted to take him in almost sideways-on, and it wasn't as immediate a feeling as when girls had sucked him bare but it was John, John with Paul's dick mostly in his mouth and that made it better than anything.  
  
At this point, anything that might have come out of Paul's mouth would have been incoherent. With an effort, he fought his hips down again, trying to keep still, and tangled one hand in his own hair -- anything not to grab John too hard, push him too far. But John was sucking at him steadily now, making Paul shiver, his dick jerking. Then John's thumbs hooked in the waistband of Paul's underwear and Paul couldn't help but moan, more at the idea than anything.  
  
"All right, Macca," John chided him, glancing up. But his mouth was curving in a smile and his voice was hoarse and hot, as if he liked this. As if he liked sucking Paul's dick like a girl or a queer and that idea shouldn't have made Paul hot all over, but it did, oh Christ, it fucking did.  
  
"Yeah," Paul said faintly, unable to take his eyes off John's hands tugging Paul's shorts down over his arse, tossing them aside. John's face as it moved close again. Then John nuzzled him, rubbed the bridge of his beautiful nose against the spine of Paul's dick and when he lifted his head again, there was a smear of precome shimmering on his cheek. "Fucking hell," Paul said, faintly, and John grinned at him, suddenly manic and pleased, though his cheeks were still pink.  
  
"Mad, eh?" John said with a wink, and Paul would have answered him, except that now John was sucking the naked crown of Paul's cock into his mouth and all Paul could do was collapse onto his back on the bed and yell John's name.  
  
John squeezed Paul's thighs once, hard, reminding him to keep it quiet. Paul was panting, his face flushed, and all he could manage was to give John a weak, apologetic smile in return as he reached out to run his fingers gently through John's hair. John responded with a soft lick across the tip of Paul's cock before he took him into his mouth again and kept on sucking lightly until Paul was squirming and begging for more. It took John a couple of tries and a good amount of bravery to actually lower his mouth slowly onto Paul's dick and bob his head, but the sounds Paul made, and the way he tugged lightly at John's hair while the other hand was blindly grasping the bedsheets, were actually worth it.  
  
It didn't take long, though, before Paul's thighs began to tremble, heat pooling in his abdomen, and he let go of John's hair. This wasn't a good sign. A part of him didn't want to come just yet, not when this was going to be their first real time together. Paul wanted to stay aroused while John fucked him and he wasn't sure if he could be once it came down to actual fucking.  
  
"John... Stop. Please," he managed to rasp out, breathing heavily through his nostrils, "I'm too close."  
  
John was breathing hard, too, somewhat to Paul's surprise and gratification. It didn't exactly help with his situation to see John that way, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks and fingers fluttering against Paul's hips as he worked his mouth up and down Paul's cock in wet, steady strokes. At Paul's urgings, John hesitated for a second, drawing his mouth up to the tip of Paul until the slick crown of him was just barely resting against John's lower lip. But then John's eyes flashed mischievously, defiantly, and Paul realised, with a mixture of lust and panic, that the hesitation was only momentary.   
  
John sucked him down again, and the descent of his mouth was smoother, this time, more practised. John was learning his way around this, Paul could tell; he felt himself nudge up against the back of John's mouth this time, the soft fleshy place where his throat began, and John coughed slightly, but didn't gag; only pressed his tongue hard to the underside of Paul's cock and drew off again -- and then back. God, but he was getting good at this. Good already, because it was John, his reddish hair fallen forward over his face and his beautiful hands clutching Paul to him as he worked, but that wasn't all that was making Paul shiver, all the sensation in his body arrowing down to the place between his legs where John's mouth was taking him apart.  
  
"John," he protested, but it was weak, now. He tugged at John's hair, this time to yank him off, rather than pull him closer, but John only laughed, the sound still distinct around his mouthful of cock, and clung on harder, knuckles whitening as he began to move faster. His hands shifted, flexing, encouraging, and Paul could hardly help the way he began to move as they suggested, his hips lifting to meet John's mouth in a slow undulation that became a steady roll.  
  
"John," Paul whispered, but it wasn't a protest now, not any more. He had forgotten that. Why had he not wanted to come? He wanted it now, with a fierce urgency; wanted to come down John's throat, or on his face, whatever John would allow, and then he would get hard again just from the thought of it and John would fuck him, the way he was fucking John's mouth now and --  
  
It hit him all at once, a cry breaking out of him as he started to come, pulsing once in John's mouth and then, when John had pulled away sputtering ("Bloody hell, Macca!") the rest of it spurting over the side of John's face, the hollow of his neck.  
  
"I'm sorry," Paul managed, breathless, but he wasn't really sorry, not exactly. His whole body was buzzing, and John looked...  
  
Their eyes met, and Paul could feel his cock twitching, its youthful eagerness too intense to be dispelled by one orgasm alone.  
  
"I'm not going to say that it's okay," John said, but he was smiling -- even though it was weak.  
  
However, Paul still reached out for him, mumbling, "Come here, love," which would have usually made him cringe or feel embarrassed at least, but not now. John didn't seem to mind either, seeing as how he crawled on top of Paul and captured his lips instantly in a greedy kiss. But it didn't last long. Paul withdrew gently from the kiss before he smiled at John and leaned in, his tongue flicking briefly across John's jaw and licking off the mess he had made.  
  
Truth be told, Paul had been curious about what it might feel like, to do this, but when he licked it off John's cheek with soft strokes of his tongue, he almost regretted it. The taste was awful, and yet, when he noticed the astonished look on the other's face, eyes clouded and cheeks pink, Paul continued with the soft licks and gentle kisses.  
  
"Better now?" he murmured and rubbed his nose against John's. John hummed in reply, pecking Paul's lips once more.  
  
"Lie down, love. I'll be right back." And with that, John got up from the bed to rummage through his clothes.  
  
"What are you looking for?" Paul asked, head turned on the pillow, facing John, while he absent-mindedly trailed his fingertips along his chest.  
  
"Handkerchief," John replied and Paul smiled at that.  
  
"I said I was sorry," he said, "Now come back, Johnny."  
  
John clicked his tongue, chiding him. "My, my! Such impatience from a nice young man like you, Macca!"  
  
When John crawled back onto their bed, Paul noticed -- not quite without worry -- that John carried not only the tube of lube they had bought earlier, but also the little sex toy.  
  
  
"What are you going to do with that?" Paul tried to keep the nervousness out of his voice, but he wasn't sure how far he succeeded. He pulled himself up onto his elbows and his eyebrows drew together unconsciously as he watched John clamber back into position between Paul's legs, gently easing them further apart to make room.   
  
"What do you think?" John asked, raising his eyebrows suggestively as he fumbled with the cap on the bottle of lube.  
  
"I've no idea," Paul shot back, honestly. "I thought you only nicked it for a laugh."  
  
"Well," John said, drizzling lube nonchalantly onto his fingers, "I did, at the time, but I've had an idea. Here, spread, love."  
  
John's tone was so casual that Paul found himself spreading his thighs without thinking, his mind still too busy with its other concern -- the little string of beads -- to register the connection between it and the order he had just unthinkingly obeyed. Then John's fingers crept up between Paul's legs, the slick tip of the index finger rubbing lightly over the clenched muscle of Paul's arsehole, and the connection came flooding back.  
  
"Christ!" Paul clutched at the bedsheet two-handed, his legs jerking.  
  
"All right?" John looked up at him wide-eyed, earnest. His finger was moving in slow circles, applying a little pressure, but not quite enough to breach the muscle -- just enough to tease it. Paul swallowed, trying to process the strange new sensations.  
  
"Yeah," he said, "yeah, it -- feels nice, actually." And it did, nothing about it demanding or frightening, just the slow tease of John's finger coaxing Paul's body to relax. John smiled.  
  
"Good," he said, "maybe those old queers were onto something after all."  
  
A push, and John, Paul realised to his shock, was inside. Only to the first knuckle, but there had been no pain, even if the feeling wasn't so much pleasant as just odd. Paul frowned slightly, shifting his weight, and John shushed him, pushing his finger as far into Paul as it would go, then withdrawing and working his way back in with a second slicked finger. "Still okay?"  
  
"Yeah," Paul murmured, trying to make himself relax. John was moving his fingers slowly in and out, now, rotating them in the tight clench of Paul's body and then pulling out almost to the tips, and Paul could feel himself relaxing. It didn't feel amazing, or anything, but Paul thought he could see where the potential might lie.  
  
"Good," John said, again, and then, "Let me try something."  
  
Paul's immediate reaction to that was panic. Certainly, things were okay so far, but John's brilliant schemes had ended in disaster enough times in the past that Paul was wary. His hand went immediately to John's wrist, but John was still moving his fingers slowly, thrusting them smoothly in and out, and the sensation was becoming distracting enough that Paul somehow wasn't quick enough to stop John when he slid his fingers out entirely and replaced them with the first, small bead on the string. It wasn't string, exactly, not as such, but something stiffer than that, and Paul gasped as he felt a second bead slip easily through the ring of muscle to be swallowed up by his body. Then a third, and John was still going.  
  
"John," Paul gasped. He could feel sweat breaking out on his skin, now, his cock beginning to fill again. The expression on John's face was one of intense concentration as he fed the beads in, slowly...slowly.  
  
"All right, love," John said. Perhaps half of the beads were inside Paul's body, now; he could feel a strange fullness gathering, and with each new bead, the distribution of those already inside him shifted, which was an interesting sensation. Then John pushed in another bead, a larger one, and Paul --  
  
"Oh!" He clutched at the sheets. Now the beads inside of him were pressing against something, something that made Paul's heart beat fast and his dick jump. John's face broke out immediately in a grin.  
  
"Yeah?" Another bead went in, and Paul groaned and shifted his hips on the mattress. "Is it doing something?"  
  
"God, yeah," Paul panted, lifting his hips a little. "Dunno what, but -- keep goin', John, please."  
  
John complied immediately. With a swift careful movement, he pushed the last two beads into Paul and Paul gasped at that, his hips going immediately still.  
  
"Paul?" John asked quietly, "Is it still okay?"  
  
Paul's breathing had become shallow, his eyes closed and his lips parted. With his eyebrows knitted together, he nodded slowly and swallowed. "Yeah," he eventually rasped out, "I-It's okay. It's... It's good."  
  
And how good it was. Paul would never have expected it. That toy had looked to him like a torture instrument, but now... But now it was teasing some strange spot inside him that had his cock getting hard again. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough pressure for Paul to feel more and so he tried to wriggle around a little but it was futile. Frustrated noises escaped him and when he heard John cursing silently, he opened his eyes to find John staring at him with dark eyes.  
  
Gently, John pulled the string back and Paul almost instantly replied with a small whimper. John's hand stilled when Paul grasped his wrist.  
  
"No. Don't."  
  
"Why?" John frowned at him, but smiling nevertheless.  
  
With pink cheeks, Paul avoided his eyes as he spoke, "It's just -- It feels good. I don't want it to be over just yet."  
  
"Silly tart," John smiled as he leaned forward and kissed Paul. "Shut up and enjoy it." And while he said this, he slowly, teasingly removed one bead after another while Paul moaned into the kiss, lifting his hips up of his own accord.  
  
"God, Macca," John breathed, sounding openly fascinated, "you're getting off bloody hard on this, aren't you?"  
  
"Shut up," Paul tried to say, but John chose just the right moment to slip the next bead past the sensitive entrance to his body and so it came out as a broken little moan, giving Paul away.  
  
"That's okay," John told him. His voice was a little ragged too, and when Paul managed to open his eyes fully again, he could see that John was aching hard. "You're meant to like it. I'm glad you like it. Then maybe you'll like..."  
  
He trailed off, and his sudden shyness, the pink on his cheeks, made Paul bold. "The other, eh?" he teased gently, and lifted a hand to push at the straining bulge in John's jeans which, by some oversight, were still on. "Come on, Johnny. Feel all empty now."  
  
"Christ." John closed his eyes for a second, as if gathering himself. Then he tugged, jerking the last few beads out of Paul in a way that made Paul arch and whimper, clutching at John's arms. "All right, give me a sec -- I better, um..."  
  
His hands, Paul noticed, were shaking as they unzipped and shoved and wrestled jeans and underwear down and off, and then Paul could see John's dick, thick and ready and wet at the tip. So ready Paul could smell the dark musk of him, and his whole body roiled with sudden want.  
  
"Come on," he urged, and spread his thighs a little wider, canting his hips up, "Before I come to me senses."  
  
John's shaking hands meant the amount of lube that ended up on his cock was probably excessive, but Paul didn't mind that, even when John's hands found Paul's thighs and tugged him close, still slippery. John's eyebrows were furrowed with concentration, and the blunt head of his cock pressed against Paul felt bigger than fingers, bigger than beads. But Paul's body twitched, wanting it; he remembered the size of the largest bead, at least as big as John, and breathed out slowly, relaxing.  
  
"Come on," he whispered, and pushed down, shoving himself onto the tip of John's cock, urging. "Are we going to fucking shag or aren't we?"  
  
"Bloody hell," John muttered under his breath, and then with a gasp like a swimmer breaking surface, began to push in, slowly, slowly, until all of him was inside.  
  
***  
  
Suddenly, a shrill cry yanked John out of his thoughts. He very nearly jumped out of his chair, but then he realised that his son was crying, and he got up, cursing softly under his breath.  
  
“Yoko?” he shouted, but no answer came. Sean's screaming only got louder, though, and so John yelled once more, “ _Yoko_!”  
  
“Daddy...?” Sean whimpered from his room, his fragile little voice breaking from his uncontrollable sobbing.  
  
“I'm coming,” John sighed and quickly walked over to his child's bedroom. “Daddy's here, love. Did you have a nightmare?”  
  
As soon as John had sat down on Sean's tiny bed, the boy quickly crawled into his lap and buried his wet face in his father's chest, holding on tight to his shirt as he continued to cry softly.  
  
“Monsters,” he barely managed to stammer out as if he was too afraid they might come back at the mention of them.  
  
“Where?” John probed gently, caressing the back of Sean's soft head.  
  
“U--under the bed.”  
  
“Alright, let me take a look.”  
  
John gently put his son back down onto the mattress before he moved to kneel next to the bed.  
  
“Daddy, no!” the toddler cried when John bowed his head and looked underneath the bed, but John only smiled at that. He found one of Sean's old action figures and took it.  
  
“I guess Superman wanted to play a trick on you!” he grinned up at Sean as he waved the figure in front of his son's face. Sean grabbed it immediately and pressed it to his body.  
  
“No,” he pouted, “Superman is good.”  
  
“Well, then the monster's gone, Sean. He's on the run.” John leaned forward and kissed his son's forehead. “And your daddy's here to protect you. Now go back to sleep.”  
  
The boy eyed John with a still slightly scared look on his face but when John promised him to leave the door open and the light in the hall switched on, he seemed to relax and lay down again with Superman neatly squished up his small body.  
  
John gave a soft smile before he left. What would Paul say if he could see him now?


	13. Chapter 13

"Happy birthday, John."  
  
"Ta, love," John smiled back before he took his birthday gift from Paul --a rather impressive hamburger -- and took a bite from it. He hummed his contentment as he chewed on it and watched with attentive eyes as Paul sat down slowly, wincing slightly as he was finally seated.  
  
"You all right?" John mumbled and there was a look of concern on his face that touched Paul.  
  
"Yeah, don't worry. How's the burger?" Paul asked and took a sip from his banana milkshake.  
  
"Very good. Best birthday present I've ever had."  
  
"Oh really?" Arching his eyebrows at John, Paul leaned forward on the table with his elbow resting on it and his hand supporting his head.  
  
John smiled back at him and reached out to graze his knuckles briefly across Paul's cheek. "You know what I mean, Paul."  
  
The other merely closed his eyes briefly at the contact and nodded.  
  
They continued to eat in silence -- Paul watching John happily munching away his burger while he sipped on his Coke. His eyes briefly flickered to the other people that surrounded their table, some couples amongst them. When he witnessed a sweet kiss shared by one of the couples, Paul looked back to John, and stated matter-of-factly, "I think I love you, John."  
  
With burger poised halfway between his plate and his mouth, John hesitated for a moment at those words, but only a moment. Paul's face, when John glanced up at it, was calm, frankly open. Earnest, certainly, but nothing about it shot panic into John's heart; nothing in what Paul had thrown out so casually, after all, could be more earth-shattering than the way it had felt last night when John had lost himself in the heat of Paul's body, the completeness of Paul's trust. Thinking about it, he realised that he had known then what Paul had just told him: it was in Paul's face, in the way Paul's barriers had all fallen down with only the slightest protest. Moreover, when he rolled the thought over in his head --  _Paul loves me...I love Paul.._.-- it no longer felt jarring or strange. It had been a truth for a long time, just recently uncovered, but not new. Things didn't have to change for them. Their lives, and careers, were just beginning. Cyn had always known how invested John was in Paul; he'd been that way as long as he'd known her, and this was barely different. Paul by his side was all John needed. Nobody had ever understood them. They'd never let anyone into their secrets. This was only one more.  
  
"I should hope so," John threw back after a second, smiling at Paul as he set the burger down again and reached for his napkin. "What kind of tart would you be if you let just anyone bugger you, Macca?"  
  
Paul coloured immediately, and John found himself deeply endeared by it.  
  
"John," Paul hissed, glancing around the little diner as if he expected his dad to walk in any moment with a frown and a newspaper to administer a beating with.  
  
"Well," John said, and sat back in his chair. Then, nonchalantly, "Course I do too, Paul."  
  
Paul's face shifted immediately at that, his eyes turning shrewd and alert. "Do what?" he nudged. Typical Macca. John almost rolled his eyes, but stopped himself just in time and caught Paul's foot between both of his instead, squeezing it firmly under the table. Anything Paul could say, after all, he could say too. John wasn't about to be outdone.  
  
"Love you," he said, firm and blunt, and then cleared his throat. "You got any ketchup left? I've run out."  
  
"Anything for the birthday boy," Paul said. He smiled beatifically as he passed the little sauce-filled tub, and John heard in the words the echo of what he really meant:  _anything for you._  


 

***

  
  
When John went back to his room, he was lost in thought, eyebrows tightly knit as he reflected on this particular memory. It was a beautiful memory, but that was exactly why his chest hurt to think of it now, that peak of bright hope before all the tumults that had followed. He almost didn't hear the phone ring and quickly hurried over to it, wondering at the back of his mind where Yoko was as he picked up the receiver.  
  
“Hello..?” he asked, careful and slightly sceptical. It was past ten in the evening, almost eleven and usually he never received any phone calls at this time of the day. Not without having Yoko answer them first, anyway.  
  
However, nothing came. John could hear a bit of breathing and just when he was about to say something, he suddenly heard a melody. Quite a well-known at that, too.  
  
“Is this some sick joke?” he groused, “Who the hell is there?”  
  
But no answer. From the other end of the line, John could only hear a man with an Italian voice singing, “Oh this is the night, it's a beautiful night, and we call it bella notte.”  
  
John frowned, feeling his heart tighten. “Alright, enough. I'll hang up.”  
  
And then, then there was suddenly a cough and a light, sleepy giggle, the music stopped playing and John heard a tired voice saying his name.  
  
“Johnny? It's me.”  
  
“Paul? What the--? What the fuck are you  _doing_?” John looked briefly at his watch. “It's fucking half past three in the morning for you! Why aren't you in bed?”  
  
He was ranting, he knew it. Instead of feeling happy or excited that Paul called him, John couldn't help but feel angry that Paul called him that late. Late for Paul, that was, not for John. It was irrational, but there it was. Paul didn't have the right to call John up at all hours, not any more. He had forfeited that right, and thinking about that, after all his days and nights reminiscing about that long-ago Paul with whom he'd shared everything, was what hurt John most.   
  
"Couldn't sleep," Paul said, after a moment. That unexpectedly deep voice, made rough by the late hour. John remembered that voice, saying sweet sleepy things across the pillow. In Paris, and after. John could just picture Paul, softly hooded eyes and his five o'clock shadow dark on his cheeks.   
  
Sternly, John shook his head, shaking the image away. That was all long ago now. His reminiscing had been making him soft.   
  
"You couldn't sleep, so you called me? What do you want, Paul?"   
  
A pause, and then a snatch of that damn giggle again. John sighed, partly at the little wave of fondness that skittered through him at the sound.   
  
"Are you pissed?" he demanded.   
  
"No!" Paul retorted, indignant. Then, "I had a bit of wine a while ago...but that was hours and hours, it's worn off now."   
  
"I forgot alcohol gives you insomnia sometimes," John said. "Stead of passing out like a decent human being, you get all scratchy-eyed and whiny."  
  
Paul laughed softly. "Surprised you remembered that."   
  
"I'm like an elephant, me," John said. "Never forget a thing."   
  
He'd meant it to come out a little ominously, but Paul only laughed again, and John knew he hadn't quite hit the right tone. It was too hard. He'd been feeling horribly fond of Paul this past week, and although he knew it was practically a different Paul entirely, a different world, the man on the other end of the phone still sounded infuriatingly like the boy who'd sucked bruises into John's neck and panted his name.   
  
Fuck. John couldn't think about that now, not with Paul, real Paul, no-longer-his Paul, on the other end of the phone. He tamped down the little flare of heat at the memory and cleared his throat.   
  
"Been remembering lots of things lately."   
  
Why did he say that? Bloody hell.   
  
But he could hear the smile in Paul's voice. "Oh, yeah?" If it had been anyone else, John would have said he sounded almost flirtatious now. But this was Paul, he always sounded like that. Couldn't bloody help it, it seemed.   
  
Still, John had burned his boats now, might as well go on. "Yeah," he said. "Remember Paris?"   
  
There was a short pause – John could hear Paul inhaling sharply, briefly – and then Paul said in a soft, tentative voice, “How could I ever forget that?”  
  
John nodded with a soft hum, feeling slightly pleased with that answer. “Anyway, I --”  
  
“Actually,” Paul interrupted him, his voice turning into a mumble as he continued, “Been thinking about it as well...”  
  
“When?” John asked and he cursed himself for letting his curiosity show. Paul, though, didn't seem to notice it or acknowledge it, which John was quite thankful for.  
  
“In fact... this evening. Or, well...” And now Paul let out a small embarrassed laugh. John could picture so well how he was probably scratching his nose right now. “I dreamed of it.”  
  
John breathed out softly. “And?”  
  
“And, you know, I—I missed you. S'all. I just... miss you.”  
  
In that moment, John was glad Paul wasn't able to see his grin. The embarrassment in the other's voice was more than evident, though, and for a moment John felt like he was twenty-one again and trying to deal with a flustered Paul as he stumbled through their very first, terrible attempt at phone sex.  
  
Not that there was any reason for him to be thinking of that right now, except that, now that the thought was in his mind, he found himself laughing softly at the memory.   
  
"What's funny?" Paul demanded, sounding slightly affronted, and John realised belatedly how ill-timed that laughter might have been.   
  
"Oh -- nothing," he said quickly. "I wasn't...I wasn't laughing at you, Paul." A pause, and then -- might as well out with it -- "I miss you too. Especially when I get to thinking about things, y'know. How stuff used to be."   
  
"Like what?" The trepidation had fallen out of Paul's voice now, to be replaced by an obvious curiosity, tentative and warm. "What were you laughing at just then, eh?"   
  
John bit his lip on a grin. "Remember when we'd just come home?"   
  
Paul snorted. "You avoided me for a week."   
  
" _You_  avoided  _me_ , you mean," John protested.   
  
"We avoided each other," Paul said diplomatically, which made John smile more. Typical Paul.   
  
"Then I rang you and you stuttered down the phone for ten minutes like a broken record."   
  
"Well!" Paul was waking up, now, John could tell, his voice more animated, no longer slurry with sleep. "That's because you tried to give me a dirty phone call when I was standing in the kitchen with Dad's tea-plate in my hand. Didn't expect it, did I?"   
  
Paul's outrage was almost as entertaining as the memory. He'd never quite forgiven John for that. "Aw, you were cute, though. Worst phone sex I've ever had."   
  
"I got better," Paul shot back, darkly, and John felt the impact of the words thunder through him in inappropriate, impossible ways.   
  
"Yeah," he said, slightly shakily, "you did."   
  
Maybe it was the way John's voice had unintentionally changed but he could hear how Paul sucked in the air rather harshly as he realised that they were entering dangerous territory.  
  
“You, too, Johnny,” he replied after a short moment, “Although you were always quite gifted with that mouth of yours.”  
  
That had John laughing. “I know that you appreciated it, Paul. In any way possible, right?”  
  
The other had joined John’s laughter, even though there was a hint of remorse in it. “You know I did, love.” There was something left unsaid between them that hung in the air, had John waiting and hoping for  _something_  but both men were apparently too afraid of it. Just when John was thinking he should send Paul back to bed and say goodnight to him, the latter suddenly blurted out, “I want to see you again, John.”  
  
“…What?”  
  
Paul sighed and repeated in a softer, calmer voice, “I said I want to see you again. I can’t fucking believe that my best friend lives at the other end of the world and that I only ever get to see you in newspapers or on the bloody telly. I’m sick of it, to be frank…”  
  
“Well,” John cleared his throat, the feeling of embarrassment washing over him, “What do you want me to say, Paul? I have a toddler here at home, and a wife who’s absent for most of the time.” He didn’t want to sound that harsh, though, and so he quickly added with a wry smile, “I guess that’s what Cyn felt like back then.”  
  
He could hear Paul’s slightly uneasy chuckle at that, and when he spoke again, he sounded sadder than before.  
  
“I was just saying, John. It’s not as if I could do anything about it, anyway. I’ve asked you often enough to meet up again, so…”  
  
“I want to.” John cut in quickly, the words tumbling out of his mouth.  
  
“Want what?”  
  
“Meet up. With you. See you.”  
  
For a moment, there was an anxious silence on both sides of the line. John could hear Paul's breathing, the hesitancy in it. His heart was beating very fast. Things had ended a little unceremoniously with Paul the last time they'd seen each other in person, John knew that. And he knew, too, what it must have cost Paul to even suggest meeting again, after that. He silently thanked whatever powers the universe might hold for the fact that Paul was braver than he was.   
  
"The last time..." Paul began, tentatively, and John leapt in, wanting to make this as easy for Paul as possible.   
  
"I didn't mean what you thought I meant, you know. I didn't mean  _never come back_ , you daft git. It was just -- the baby, and I'd had a long day, and..." John sighed. "I thought everything would've blown over by now. The distance stuff."   
  
"You thought the Atlantic Ocean would've blown over by now?" The laughter in Paul's voice was evident, and John's chest thudded with relief. "Yeah, I'm pretty sick of it, myself. Think we could do without it."   
  
"Shut up," John said, but he didn't mean it really. This,  _this_  was his Paul, this was JohnandPaul, this was  _them_. Fuck, what had they done? Why had they wasted all this time? "Will you -- will you be over here any time soon, d'you think?"   
  
"I'm sure I will be," Paul said easily. "I often am, for business reasons, as you know. You're not still having trouble with immigration, are you?"   
  
John hesitated. "No, but --"   
  
"But Yoko," Paul finished for him, and sighed. There was a little pause; John could hear Paul holding himself back from some comment, and equal parts of him feared and yearned for him to say it. But Paul was too diplomatic for that; he moved on: "That's all right. Look, John, I'll have a look in the morning, and then I'll ring you up and we can have a chat about it. Yeah?"   
  
"I'll ring you," John said quickly. The last thing he wanted was to mysteriously lose this telephone call to Yoko's machinations. "And yeah, I'd -- I'd like that, Paul." Already, John could feel his chest lightening. This wasn't, should not have been, a huge thing, chatting on the phone with an old friend, but Paul was more than that, meant more than that, and this felt enormous. "Now, shouldn't you be getting back to your bed, you silly bugger?"   
  
"Yeah," Paul said softly, and then paused.   
  
"What?" John prompted, after a long moment. He felt sure Paul had been going to say something else.   
  
"Nothing," Paul said, and this time his voice was unguarded as John hadn't heard it in a long time -- as John remembered it from once upon a time. "Just didn't want to hang up just yet, that's all. Night, Johnny."   
  
"Night, Paul. Sleep tight." And, decisively, John made himself hang up the receiver.   
  
Earlier, when John had picked up the phone, there had been an aching sense of loss in him, even under all the sweet memories, at the thought of Paul. Now, as he headed to bed, his heart felt lighter. Yes, they had lost a lot of themselves. Thrown a lot away, even. But maybe, John thought, as he turned back the covers, something of it could be clawed back. It wasn't too late.   
  
 _My best friend_ , Paul had said.   
  
John was smiling as he fell asleep, buoyed by the promise of hope.


End file.
